Short Stories About Azula
by DancingKirby
Summary: A collection of my odds and ends from Tumblr, all of which involve Azula in some way. In no particular order, and I really have no idea how many there'll end up being. Rating bumped up to M to be safe, but not all of these are rated that high. Multiple pairings.
1. Home

"You're _so_ generous," Azula muttered once they were out of earshot of the crowds. "You let me live in the palace, with all the honors due to a princess, and even threw me a welcome-home party, after all I've done! That could be dangerous. Why, at any time, I might rally people to my cause and try to get my throne back!":

She paused for breath and added, " I can't say I'd do the same for you if our places were switched."

"I know," Zuko ground out between his teeth.

"And yet you do it anyway."

"Yet I do it anyway."

"You're _weird_," sniffed Azula as she left to check out the dumpling table. Weird or not, she'd gone three and a half years without proper dumplings, and she wasn't going to wait one more minute.


	2. Looks

"New babies are rather hideous, really," Azula said conversationally. "They have those frog-legs and that squished-up face, and they're all purple and covered with gross substances when they come out. I don't see _why_ people continue to insist that they're cute."

Her audience yawned.

"I see…you don't care about that, do you?" Azula asked. "They say you must have been switched out at birth, you know, because you're so mellow all the time. But admittedly, you look better than most…even if you did inherit your father's big, lumpy head."

She paused, pointed a dramatic finger, and said sternly, "Which was not pleasant to give birth to, I might add!"

Kazuo's only response was to blow a spit bubble.


	3. Listening

Tom-Tom could be so _infuriating_! If Azula asked him to, say, find a servant to take the dinner plans down to the kitchen, he'd say, "Okay," and she'd leave. More often than not, she'd come back several minutes later to find that he hadn't moved.

"Did you do what I asked you to?" Azula would inquire.

"Huh?" he'd say like this was all entirely new to him.

At this point, Azula would rap him with a fan (which she'd had specially made for this specific purpose) and snap, "Pay attention!"

(Also, what the heck kind of grown man _still_ referred to himself as "Tom-Tom"?)

So it made it all the more surprising that, when it was actually something _important_, he was such a good listener. Tom-Tom was the only person Azula had told _everything_ about her past to. Not even Zuko and Ty Lee knew as much.

Therefore, she decided she would keep him. And maybe, very deep down, she felt just the _tiniest_ bit disappointed on the occasions when she advanced on Tom-Tom, fan raised to strike, and he proudly proclaimed, "I already did it!"


	4. Flowers

"Mommy, look!"

Azula did as Kazuo said, and saw that he was brandishing a fistful of wildflowers. They weren't much more than weeds, really, and quite wilted from being clutched so tightly in his hand.

"How…nice," she said faintly as she gingerly took them from him. Her first instinct was to just burn them and be done with it, but when she looked back, Kazuo's face had fallen.

"Is it okay?" he asked hesitantly.

Somehow that look was a lot less hilarious than it had been on Zuko back when they were kids.

So Azula made herself smile and said, "They're perfect!" She went to fill one of the antique decorative vases with water and put the flowers in it.

That evening, when they were holding a private dinner for some diplomats (Kazuo had been fed earlier so he wouldn't be starving and cranky at this late hour), Azula loudly bid their guests to look at the flowers her son had picked.

"Aren't they beautiful?" she demanded. Thankfully, everyone played along, and Kazuo beamed.


	5. Feelings

A/N: This and the next chapter are more mature (though not explicit). This chapter contains Azula/Ty Lee, and both chapters reference Ozai/Azula.

The first night they were away from New Ozai, Ty Lee went down on Azula. Although the latter was loath to admit it, she was caught off-guard.

They'd only just been starting to progress beyond kissing when Ty Lee abruptly left for the circus. And she'd done it for Daddy, of course, but he'd only ever used his fingers on her for additional stimulation. So she'd just sort of assumed that it wasn't really a thing that could be done to a woman.

She'd been wrong.

And it had been a long several weeks of travelling with only soldiers as company, and knowing that in theory she had the power to call any or all of them to her bed, but that in fact this would be disastrous to her reputation, so she had to rely only on herself. Thus, she was maybe more than a bit louder than she would have liked. But this was worth it in some ways because she could practically _hear_ Mai huffing indignantly and pulling her pillow over her head.

The next day, Azula made sure to be extra-strict with Ty Lee, so she wouldn't get any ideas about Azula having _feelings_ for her. But Ty Lee kept on smiling regardless.


	6. Punishment

"Have you ever wondered how it happened?" Azula asked out of the blue one day while they were sitting in the garden.

"Wondered what?" Ursa replied rather nonplussed.

"How I got knocked up."

Well, Ursa couldn't exactly say she'd ever given it any thought. But she supposed she was about to find out anyway.

"I talked back to Father when he was crowned as Phoenix King. In public," Azula said in a perfectly even voice. "Two separate offenses. So he had to punish me twice."

Ursa cringed. She'd been afraid it was something like that.

All she could think to say was "I'm sorry."

"Why should you be sorry? It wasn't like you were_ there._"


	7. Candy

Seeing as how Ty Lee's only "children" were her three cat-owls, she was all too ready to spoil Kazuo whenever he went to her house to spend the night.

Azula was really going to have to talk to her about this…

"You can't have all that candy at once," she told Kazuo while gesturing at the huge bag he'd brought home with him.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because it will rot your teeth," Azula answered.

"Why?"

Well, Azula was never one to dumb things down for him.

So she explained, "Because the sugar in the candy is converted into acid by the bacteria in your mouth, which eats away at the tooth enamel. And it might eat all the way into the blood vessels and nerves, and you might get a huge infection and have all your teeth fall out and DIE! Hahahaha!"

There was silence. Azula stared at Kazuo. Kazuo stared at Azula. And then…

"Why?"

Azula facepalmed.

A/N: The next chapter is a bit different...Azula's not the central focus, and it's more like an interlude than a story.


	8. Interlude: The Role of the Fire Lady

A/N: I'm posting this here mostly because it didn't seem like enough to be its own story, but it provides some context for my fanonverse.

WARNING: Underage marriage, incest/inbreeding, and ableist language. Does not cover LoK.

* * *

It was a common complaint among the nobles that there hadn't been a decent Fire Lady since the much-beloved Zaya. A good Fire Lady was essential for the smooth running of the nation, after all. While the Fire Lord made war and plotted politics, his wife had the job of arranging the multitude of tea ceremonies, dinners, balls and other state occasions that were almost a daily occurrence of court.

A wise Fire Lord would not consider this to be a lesser task or simply "women's work". A well-planned dinner could make or break an alliance, after all. And the Fire Lady was expected to be fully in charge of every last tiny detail, down to whether the water in the finger bowls would be scented by lemon or by lavender.

If there was no Fire Lady available or any other woman in the family to fill the role, a professional planner could be hired in a pinch, but this was seen as producing inferior results. Only a Fire Lady had that intimate personal knowledge of her husband.

(These roles referred to recent history…there had, of course, been female Fire Lords in the past, but the last one, who had lived nearly five hundred years ago, had had a disastrous reign that ended with her being forced to abdicate in favor of her infant son. Since then, no Fire Lord had been brave enough to designate his daughter as heir...until Ozai, that is.)

Zaya had been a perfect Fire Lady in almost every way. She was eighteen to Sozin's thirty-two when they married, and though they were first cousins, the marriage was as much a love match as it was a political one. In fact Sozin was so enamored of Zaya that he dismissed all of his concubines after they got married, and remained faithful as long as she lived.

She had been a great beauty in her youth…tall, slim and regal, with flawless skin and eyes that were darker than was usual among Fire Nation nobility. Her most famous feature had been her hair, which had just a hint of auburn and was rumored to reach down to her ankles. (It was hard to confirm this, since she always wore it up in elaborate styles in public.) Her hair grayed and her looks faded as she grew old, but her foreboding demeanor remained.

But most importantly, she was an expert at her job. She played the role of a sweet, submissive wife to perfection, but in reality she was quite possibly even more ruthless and cruel than her husband, and urged on his militarism.

Her one and only flaw was that she had not given her husband a living heir. This was not all her fault…she had given birth to eight children, six of whom reached adulthood…but four of those six ended up predeceasing Sozin before they could produce children of their own. The only two who outlived him were his oldest and youngest daughters; the oldest had married but had proven barren, and the youngest was deformed and simple-minded, and thus had never married at all.

So Sozin was faced with a dilemma by the time Zaya died. He could designate his older daughter as heir, but that would be a hard sell to the noblemen and it would cause his line to die out after she did. His two younger sisters had descendants, but again this would lead to extinction of his own line. So at the age of eighty he decided to remarry.

His new bride, Zara, was his great-niece, and just a slip of a girl at thirteen. She cried through most of the wedding ceremony, and was obviously much too immature to handle her predecessor's duties. There had been hope that she would grow into the role, but she died in childbirth not even two years later. She had provided the heir, but had not left any other meaningful impact.

After Zara, the position of Fire Lady was vacant for nearly forty years. Sozin's older daughter had stepped in as hostess when Zara was unable to do so, and she continued to do a satisfactory job after, but she died in the early years of Azulon's reign (her younger sister had predeceased her).

So the court was very excited when Azulon finally decided to marry. But they were to be sorely disappointed. Fire Lady Ilah had been the sixth of nine children, so she'd been largely ignored throughout her childhood and had never learned how to distinguish herself. She was also short, fat, and painfully shy.

The sixteen-year-old girl had tried her best, and at first she enjoyed some popularity after promptly producing an heir. But the mockery of the court proved to be too much for her, and after her second child was a short-lived daughter, Ilah withdrew from public life almost completely.

No one knew for sure just how she'd managed to conceive a second son years after her husband had stopped visiting her bed. One story went that Ilah was worried about her son Iroh's first tour of duty in the army, and Azulon, in an unusually sympathetic mood, had comforted her. Another one said that Azulon had been planning to leave on an extended hunting trip, but a storm broke out after his furniture had already been transported, so he had no choice but to spend the night with his wife. Some people whispered that Ozai was not, in fact, Azulon's child, but no one seemed to take this very seriously.

Now, on the other hand, both of Ilah's daughters-in-law would have made excellent Fire Ladies. Prince Iroh's wife, Ziran, was rarely seen without a smile on her face. She loved everyone and everything, and if a few less charitable courtiers laughed at her for this, she never let it bother her. Mostly, she was seen as a breath of fresh air…she and Iroh had been another love match, and even the increasingly surly Ilah grew fond of her. This made it all the more tragic when, seven months into her second pregnancy, Ziran suddenly fell into convulsions and died, taking the baby with her.

And then there had been Ursa, who joined the royal family nearly ten years after Iroh's wife died. Ursa was more introverted than her predecessor, but was also very capable at arranging events. The court breathed a sigh of relief when Ilah _finally_ ate herself to death and Ursa could move into the role of hostess more fully. But then everyone was dismayed when Ozai became Fire Lord and Ursa was nowhere to be found.

So people scraped by for the next few years, until Princess Azula took over the job at only twelve. She did remarkably well for someone so young. And if anyone noticed that she sat in the Fire Lady's seat, rather than that of an unmarried hostess, they were all too scared to comment on it.

Then the young Zuko had ousted his father, and become engaged almost immediately after, so everyone thought they might _finally_ get an actual Fire Lady in name as well as in practice! But, although Mai was known for being cool under pressure, the sudden and immense stress of post-war diplomacy was too much for a sixteen-year-old girl to handle, and she fled after one too many arguments with her intended. (It was rumored that she'd suffered from a nervous breakdown afterwards.)

As Zuko seemed to have no plans for marrying anyone else, all anyone could do was hope that Mai would come back someday.


	9. Midwife

"Really, Zuzu, did you have to ask her?" Azula complained as she rearranged the extra cushions at the back of her chair. "Why didn't you get a proper Fire Nation doctor instead?"

"Because those "proper Fire Nation doctors" almost killed you last time, remember?" Zuko explained for about the tenth time that week.

"And she didn't? I seem to recall you and her standing there staring at me like I was some interesting one-person show, and then leaving me out overnight to die from exposure."

She knew, of course, that Zuzu was trying very hard to not point out that Azula had tried to kill Katara first.

At this, Azula decided she was sick of sitting down and attempted to wrench herself out of her chair. The first few attempts were futile. Zuko stuck out a hand to help her, but she pretended not to see it, and finally got unstuck on her own with a loud grunt.

"Anyway," Zuko continued once she had fully stood up, "That was a long time ago, and no one has a reason to kill anyone anymore."

"Funny, because I keep reading about murders in the newspaper almost every day."

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose, swallowed whatever angry retort was rising up, and said, "Katara's an excellent midwife. With your condition…her healing ability makes me a lot more at ease. Why, just a few months ago, she delivered Toph's baby!"

"I'd think the more noteworthy part was that _Katara_ survived delivering Toph's baby," Azula snorted. Then she sat back down (at this point, she couldn't stay comfortable for long in any position), and said, "Very well. I will try my best to not throw lightning at Katara." Then she added "this time" under her breath so Zuko wouldn't hear.

A/N: And now, unfortunately, I am fresh out of stories for the moment (Just wrote this one this morning!) I do have a sort of crossover with Game of Thrones in the works, but that's nowhere near finished and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to complete it.


	10. Portrait

A/N: This chapter and the next were originally ideas for a longer oneshot I never got around to writing.

WARNING: Underage betrothal (no actual marriage or sex, though)

Zhao and Azula ended up having to take their engagement photograph over again. Azula's facial expression was evidently not appropriate for a newly-affianced girl.

"Next time, don't look so much like you're plotting someone's murder," Father told her.

"But I'm _always_ plotting someone's murder; you know that!" Azula said theatrically. Then, knowing she was trying her luck, she added, "I did get it from you, after all."

After a pause, during which Azula was totally _not_ holding her breath, Father smiled slightly. Victory!

"Well, then, at least don't look like you're plotting his murder in particular, at that specific moment in time," he amended. Fair enough.


	11. Party

"Oh, Zhao, what am I going to do with you?" Azula sighed. "You just had to go and mouth off to Admiral Chan, and now our engagement's been broken off and you'll have to go to timeout halfway across the world until you can be a good boy again."

Zhao reddened, and said, "But he…"

"Started it, yes, I'm sure," Azula cut in boredly. "But you can't do things like that. You're going to miss my fourteenth birthday party, you know. _Everyone_ wants to go, but only a few people get invitations. And I was going to invite you. It's considered a great privilege."

She leaned in and whispered, "It's such a shame you had to squander that privilege."

There. Was that enough to get through his thick skull that she wasn't _actually_ talking about some stupid party?


	12. Stranger Danger

A/N: Unfortunately, I think there would have been a lot of near misses like this for Ursa. Mai's commentary was inspired by my frustration with these presentations as a kid (that, and the fire safety ones).

Ty Lee hadn't thought of it as much more than a nice break from class. All the classes in their year got together in the assembly hall and watched a presentation about Stranger Danger and Bad Touching. She still wasn't quite sure exactly what all of it meant, but the puppet show was nice.

Her friends didn't seem to share her opinion.

"I could recite that whole thing in my sleep," Mai said while rolling her eyes as they walked to lunch.

"Hey, _I_ liked it!" Ty Lee answered.

"I hate to break it to you, Ty Lee, but it's the exact same presentation we saw last year. And the year before."

"And I liked it all three times, so there, you meanie!" Ty Lee stuck out her tongue. Then she realized that one of the trio was being very quiet. Usually, Azula would be more than willing to describe in great detail exactly _how_ juvenile the puppets were, but she hadn't said a word since they'd left the assembly.

"Are you okay, Azula?" she asked while bracing herself to be yelled at. But no yelling came.

Instead, Azula looked down and mumbled, "I…I have to use the bathroom. Save my seat at lunch for me," and hurried off.

Ty Lee was worried for a bit, but when Azula showed up in the lunchroom a few minutes later, she seemed back to her normal self, and swung her schoolbag at Ty Lee when the latter asked again if she was okay. To be honest, Ty Lee preferred this since it was at least predictable, and put the incident out of her head by the end of the day.

* * *

Ursa had not been having a good day. The grocery shipment was late, so the plans for the dinner party tonight had to be completely reworked, Zuko was sick in bed with about the tenth cold he'd caught this year, and one of her ladies-in-waiting was pregnant with what was presumably yet another one of Ozai's bastards. So when she thought she'd _finally_ gotten some time to herself in the courtyard, she reacted poorly when she heard the voice behind her.

"Mother?"

"_What_?" Ursa snapped before she could stop herself.

For an instant, Azula's eyes looked…sad? Hurt? Scared, maybe? But she quickly reschooled her expression into a sneer.

"Nothing," she spat, and then turned on her heel and stalked off, ignoring Ursa's apologies and pleas to wait. Ursa felt very bad about this, but Azula refused to talk once she found her again, and so she too forgot about this incident for almost a decade. When she did recall it, knowing what she did now, she almost cried out loud at her own ignorance.


	13. Night Light

A/N: Oh geez, I hope this doesn't give anyone cavities…I wrote this to show that Azula's not a perfect parent, but she is trying to make sure that the abuse cycle doesn't continue. And I wrote Kazuo saying that he hated her because I didn't want him to be this perfect saint, and kids that age really don't get the full magnitude of that word anyway. I still remember how I thought at that age.

I hope that Tom-Tom's explanation made sense and was age-appropriate for Kazuo. Oh yeah, and that part about Azula falling down in the garden is also mentioned in Sentence 25 of Dissociation.

ETA: Agh, forgot about Ikem! But I think it's likely that he and Ursa just drifted apart after a while.

* * *

It took Kazuo a while to realize that his mommy was a bit…different. At first, he thought all mommies burst into their kids' rooms in the middle of the night, shook them awake, gave a sigh of relief, and left. He also thought they all got bad headaches every so often and had to lie in bed all day. So he didn't think much about it.

Then, one day when he was three, he and Mommy and Dad and Aunt Mai and Zumi were all in the garden, and Mommy fell down and started trembling. But then she got back up quickly, before Kazuo had time to really even figure out that something was wrong (he thought she'd just been playing at first), and that evening she didn't make him eat any vegetables at dinner, so it all turned out okay as far as Kazuo was concerned.

The first time he _really_ figured it out when he was five, and he and Mommy were sitting in the living room. She was working with her sketchbook (she never let him in the room when she was painting, but drawing was okay), and he was sitting in the floor talking about whatever came to mind…Mommy didn't call him her little chatterbox for nothing.

Somehow Kazuo's thoughts had wandered over to family, and he mentioned something that had been puzzling him…most of his friends had two grandmas and two grandpas, but he only had two grandmas and one grandpa. Later he'd regret not noticing how Mommy suddenly tightened her grip on her ink brush.

So he rattled on, "I asked Zumi, and she said I had another grandpa, but he's in jail. What'd he do? I wanna see h…"

And then Mommy _lunged_ at him so quickly he screamed, and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

"You're never to mention that man again. EVER! Do you understand?!"

After she let go of him, Kazuo just stood there for several seconds in shock, then burst into tears and ran into his room.

After a few minutes, she started knocking on his door, but he'd locked it. Eventually she gave up, and Kazuo was left alone to gradually stop crying on his own. He just sat on his bed for a long time, thinking about what a meanie Mommy was. Then he heard voices talking for a million years, footsteps down the hall, and more knocking.

"Kazuo. Can I come in?"

It was Dad, so Kazuo let him in.

Dad said, "Mommy is very sorry for what happened today."

"I hate her," Kazuo mumbled. He wasn't going to let her off the hook _that_ easily.

Dad ignored that, and said, "She was very upset. She was crying when I got home…"

"Grown-ups don't cry."

"Sometimes they do. But she's going to try to make steps to make sure that doesn't happen again."

"I _hate_ her," Kazuo insisted, but he wasn't so sure this time.

Dad sighed and thought for a minute, then started, "You know how you have a night light in your room so you don't think about scary monsters at night?"

"Yeah…" Kazuo didn't see how that had to do with anything.

"Well, it's sort of like that for Mommy, except she thinks about scary monsters all day."

Oh. That _would_ be scary.

"Maybe she should get a night light too," Kazuo mused.

Dad ruffled his hair and said, "I think _you're_ her night light, Kazuo." The he left Kazuo alone to ponder this for a while.

After a bit of work, Kazuo left his room, hugged Mommy, and gave her an extra-big drawing of a night light to keep the scary monsters away. And Dad was right…grown-ups _did_ cry. But Mommy said it was happy crying.


	14. Zuzu

A/N: I didn't used to ship Sokkla, but Tumblr has converted me! Also, in almost nine years of fanfic-writing, I believe this is the first time I have ever used the word "penis" in a fic (although I used the word "dick" twice before).

"Uhhh…question?" Sokka said.

Azula quirked an eyebrow and said "Hrm?" And here she thought he'd _finally_ learned not to talk after sex, since that would make it seem like they were more than just sort-of friends with benefits.

But now she was curious about what the question was, darn it. So she motioned for Sokka to continue.

"Why do you call him "Zuzu"?"

(No need to say who "he" was.)

Azula's eyebrow got even higher as she said, "Why not? Got any better ideas?"

"No, it's not that…it's just that…in the Southern Water Tribe, "zuzu" is kind of a word that little kids use that means…uh…penis."

"Oh," answered Azula calmly. Then after a few seconds, she doubled over and started wheezing. Sokka seemed somewhat alarmed, but Azula held out a hand to stop him before he did anything stupid…she was just laughing so hard she wasn't even making any sound. Eventually, as Sokka continued to stare in bafflement, she flopped over onto her side and started rocking back and forth.

"Can't breathe…" she finally managed to gasp. But she did eventually get control of herself back, and sat back up.

"Oh, that was _classic_**,**" she said hoarsely while wiping her eyes. "Can't wait to tell him that! Good thing I didn't actually stop breathing, though…then you might have been executed, and we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"No ma'am."

"Well then…I have no further need of you. Leave!"

"Yes ma'am!" Sokka squeaked as he gathered up his clothes and ran out.

But as soon as he was out of earshot, Azula started laughing all over again.

* * *

A/N: Uh, Azula, pretty sure _Zuzu_ wouldn't have executed Sokka.


	15. Wedding Clothes

A/N: This is an extension of Sentence 14 from Dissociation.

Azula appraised the multitude of garments laid out on her bed. They were all components of what would have been her wedding outfits.

The most elaborate one was the bridal coat. It was, of course, red, but there was so much embroidery on it that the underlying color could be hard to discern. Choked as it was with golden thread and gemstones, and with the padded hemline, it was so stiff that it could almost stand up on its own. Yuck.

Then there were several layers of kimono to wear under that. They got less complex the farther in they went, but even the innermost one could probably feed a peasant family for a year if sold. Father had spared no expense.

And she definitely recognized his handiwork in the other outfit…the one for her wedding night. This consisted of a nightgown that left absolutely nothing to the imagination (and probably wouldn't even reach all the way down her butt when she had it on), and panties that weren't much better. Oh, how Azula would have _loved_ to be in the room when Father ordered that.

Because of course, it was all part of their plan. Ostensibly, she was to be a reward for Zhao for his successful conquest of the Northern Water Tribe, but Azula was fully aware that it was all a ploy to keep him in line.

Oh well. None of that mattered now. Li and Lo had urged her to keep the outfits. Even though this wedding wasn't happening, they said, there would surely be another one in the near future. But as soon as they saw the look on Azula's face, they scurried out of the room.

Therefore, it was up to Azula herself to lug these clothes outside. They were so heavy that she ended up having to let part of them drag on the floor. So what? They might get _dirty_? Ha!

She finally got out to the courtyard, walked a decent distance away from the building, and dropped her burden in an ungainly heap. As she conjured a flame in her hand, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Father. She wasn't sure exactly how he had learned of her intentions (had Li and Lo really gotten all the way to his rooms in that time?), but obviously he had.

"You do know how expensive that all was, right?" he asked.

Azula shrugged, then bent to transfer the flame to the clothing. Some of it was tricky to set alight, but she managed in the end. Afterwards, she stood there silently for a long time, just watching it burn. It was quite a lovely sight, with the flames contrasting against the night sky. If Father stayed, he was equally quiet.


	16. Children

Azula and Tom-Tom had certainly considered having more children…despite Azula's fairly advanced maternal age, she thought she had time for another one or two if she really wanted them. They even made a few half-hearted attempts when Kazuo was a toddler, but after several months of nothing happening, decided that it was probably for the best.

The doctors had recommended that she not have any more pregnancies, for one, because of her bleeding disorder…her first pregnancy with Tom-Tom, a few months after their marriage, had ended in a miscarriage at three months, and Azula had nearly bled to death. She'd been lucky with Kazuo and she knew it (because of course that waterbender couldn't have had anything to do with it!) But even someone like her, who had been born lucky, could only try that so far.

But most of all, Azula didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation. While Kazuo himself would love a younger sibling, Azula wasn't sure she had any room left in her heart for more children. Maybe she did. But she didn't want to take the risk. (Oh, if her younger self could hear _that_!) And Kazuo was far from lonely, since he had a cousin who lived in the same building, and a whole brood of half-cousins…Kiyi's kids plus the children of Ozai's many by-blows...who lived nearby. So eventually, she came to the conclusion that she was most content with just the one child on whom to lavish attention.


	17. Kiyi

A/N: This was inspired by a discussion on Tumblr about how Kiyi might adjust to her mother suddenly being a different person. They concluded that the author of the comics would most likely gloss over that, so I decided to write this fic.

* * *

The girl was practically quaking in her shoes…well, Azula thought, that was only natural. She had asked to visit Kiyi-unaccompanied by Ursa-and Azula had threatened to decapitate her doll the last and only time they'd met each other. Speaking of which…

"I see you left your doll at home today," Azula commented wryly as her greeting. Well, she was a fast learner then…a good sign. Of course, though, maybe Ursa had prompted her to do that.

Kiyi said nothing, and took a step back.

"Oh, don't be silly, I'm not going to hurt you. I couldn't even if I wanted to," Azula snapped. She gestured around her cell with a sweep of her arm. "See? The doctors were very careful to take away anything that could be used as a weapon, and I'm not stupid enough to try to burn you."

Her half-sister still didn't look convinced. So Azula rolled her eyes and said, "Look, I'm not even going to _touch_ you, okay? I just want you to come closer so I can get a better look."

She sat on her hands to prove her point. Finally, Kiyi took a few tentative steps forward.

It was strange how much she looked like her mother's alter ego, and not Ursa herself. Kiyi's skin was too dark and her face too round to be a truly fashionable courtier, but she had nice eyes and hair. Her teeth weren't nearly as bad as Azula had feared either, although right now they were gapped because she was in the transition between baby and permanent ones. All in all, not unsalvageable.

But that look on her face…that wasn't only fear of Azula.

"You're completely miserable here," Azula guessed…a statement, not a question. Kiyi looked at her in surprise.

"You hate living in the palace, with all its rules. You would much rather things return to the way they were before... a simple, boring life in your peasant hut."

Kiyi looked indignant and made a noise of protest. Azula ignored her.

"Well? Am I right?" she coaxed.

The younger girl looked around nervously, before finally nodding.

"I…I miss my old mommy," she said hesitantly, tremulously. "And I don't like school. Eri…Eri says I'm ugly, and she and her friends laugh at me. And then she says she didn't do anything, and the teachers believe her and not me!"

She had rapidly picked up speed and volume as she spoke. Azula considered.

"Have you told your parents about this?" she asked.

"M-mommy says to just ignore them."

She _would_ do that, wouldn't she? Did she honestly feel the need to ruin the lives of _all_ of her children? At least she and Zuko had known her from the start…Kiyi had spent the first five years of her life with a mother that maybe wasn't quite so selfish. And now, for Ursa to show her true colors to this youngest child without warning while insisting that she was still her mother…that would be very traumatic for a child of that age.

Not that Azula knew very much about children.

She didn't say any of this aloud. Instead, she mused, "Eri…Eri…that name sounds familiar. Oh yes, I remember. She's one of the bastards; the kid of the Agricultural Minister's daughter. Never liked that woman…she put on airs. Like she was the _only_ pretty sixteen-year-old girl to ever be deflowered and impregnated by Ozai? Ha!"

Kiyi looked completely lost, and Azula belatedly realized who her audience was. She couldn't be expected to know about such things yet. So she tried to reframe it in words a small child would understand.

"It would seem as though Ursa and I are well overdue for a long talk," she said flatly. "Until then, the next time Eri picks on you, keep in mind that _I_ say she's a little brat, and both she and her mother richly deserve to be slapped. Probably not a good idea to actually tell her this, though."

"Okay," mumbled Kiyi, but she looked a bit more hopeful now that someone was taking her side.

Azula smirked and whispered, "Want to know a secret?"

Kiyi perked up and asked, "What is it?"

"Well, when Eri was two, her mother insisted on taking her to dinner, and she…Eri, not her mother…ended up puking _all over the table_. This was a fancy dinner, mind, with a lot of guests. So almost everyone at court saw it."

"Eeewww!" Kiyi said while giggling.

Aha! Azula had figured it out! Kids _loved_ gross stories, didn't they? Who knew that they'd finally bond over puke?

" I have plenty more stories where that came from, too. Those people at court aren't nearly as high-and-mighty as they think they are. Oh…I think you'll like the one about the undercooked beans."

So Kiyi sat on the bed next to her, and Azula began to tell it.


	18. Interlude 2: The Bastards

A/N: I decided to go more in-depth into this since it's come up in the other chapters every now and then.

The character of Ruanyu is inspired by Jade Chan from _Jackie Chan Adventures_, since I made a Tumblr post pointing out how similar they look to each other that got over a hundred notes (well, it's a lot to me!)

Keeping track of all of Ozai's bastards was often a major hassle. In the days when the Fire Lord had kept concubines, there was already a built-in system to take care of that. However, since the great Sozin himself was faithful to his wife, it was an unspoken expectation that his descendants would follow his example, and if they _must_ be unfaithful, to at least be discreet about it. This worked well enough until Ozai decided he wanted all of the fun parts of having multiple paramours, without the administrative aspects of granting them any official status.

The closest Ozai had come to having an official mistress of any kind was in his youth. The woman was a young widow who had been brought to Ozai's bed because Azulon thought his son was spending too much time with that young officer from the Zhao family. And it worked…maybe too well. Over the next five years, this woman gave Ozai three children. He might well have attempted to marry her were it not for Azulon's meddling again. Having realized his plan backfired, he forbade Ozai from speaking to her again, and promptly married him off to Ursa instead. From then on, Ozai committed to no one.

But he continued with his numerous affairs, and rarely gave a thought about any kind of contraception. It wasn't known for sure just how many children he had produced. The official count, or those he acknowledged, stood at 21 (not counting Zuko and Azula), but it was thought that the actual number might be closer to fifty. There was no real system in place for acknowledgement…most of them were of noble birth, although there were two or three born into lesser classes who had shown early firebending skill and caught Ozai's attention.

But acknowledgement wasn't the whole story. Only those mothers who were visited by Ozai in person after they gave birth could be assured that they were still in favor. If instead he sent a messenger with his congratulations, it meant that he would still financially support the child, but he never wanted the mother in his sight again. If he was feeling generous later, he might invite the child to live at the palace after a few years. Naturally, such an offer could not be turned down.

After a sizable amount had been amassed, those who were called to the palace were sent to live in a large dormitory a short distance from the main building, which in fact had originally been used for lower-ranked concubines. Anshi, the oldest, was in charge of their upbringing. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but no one had been able to come up with a better solution.

Occasionally, one of the bastards would find favor with the Fire Lord and be able to move into the palace proper. Anshi and her younger siblings were always held in high regard, due to Ozai's fondness for their mother. Her younger sister was given a very good marriage, and Anshi would have as well, but she preferred to study at the university before thinking about marrying.

A more unusual example was a girl named Ruanyu. She was the child of a kitchen maid, but had been noticed by the Princess Azula due to her upbeat attitude and her powerful flaming high-kick, not to mention her close physical resemblance to the princess. Azula took her on as sort of a pet project, and let her into her inner circle. But as Azula's mental health deteriorated, Ruanyu was forgotten.

When Zuko became Fire Lord, he attempted to fix all these problems. He gave all the acknowledged bastards the option of living in the palace, and he tried to track down all the unacknowledged ones as well, as well as give compensation to those girls and women who had been raped. But this proved to be a problem, since now hundreds of lower-class mothers were claiming that their children were Ozai's. And Zuko would have given money to them all, but Mai advised against it. In the end, he had to choose the ones that seemed the most likely, and accept that his father had left a huge mess of things that could never be completely repaired.


	19. Repressed

A/N: WARNING...you know the drill...references to incest and underage rape.

She'd used to think that the memories of the not-quite-four years she was her father's lover were something to be cherished…the rush of pleasure, both emotional and sexual, she got when she tried something new and Daddy approved; the anticipation that built up as she waited for nightfall; how much she learned about her own sexuality at such a young age.

But then, years later, the other memories started sneaking up on her when she least expected it; the stress of having to plan out every word and action hours in advance and hope that Daddy liked it; the times when he took his anger out on her when she wasn't even the cause of it; the recurrent bladder infections…and worst of all, the times he'd brought girls even younger than her into the room and made her hold them down…

And none of these except the last one had seemed like a big deal at the time (and even the last one was only at the very end, when she didn't have the wherewithal to properly consider it), but now she was able to see them as the horrifying things that they were.

Thankfully, Tom-Tom was very understanding on the nights when she woke up screaming, which happened on a regular basis.


	20. Funeral

Azula had refused point-blank to wear white to the funeral on principle. When Tom-Tom and Kazuo heard this, they stoutly said they wouldn't be wearing white either. Azula scolded, "You idiots…don't get into trouble on _my_ account!" but secretly (or perhaps not-so-secretly) she was pleased.

After spending nearly half his life in jail, Ozai had _finally_ bitten the dust at age seventy-eight. Azula was all for throwing his corpse in a ditch somewhere, but Zuko said they had to observe the niceties. Well, fine. He could make her go to the funeral, but he couldn't make her wear white, and that was final! At least Zuko was smart enough not to press the issue.

She hadn't seen the man since she testified at his trial more than thirty years ago. So as the three of them walked out of the palace, she wasn't sure what to expect.

She didn't know whether to laugh or be disappointed when she just saw a dead old guy on the pyre. Nothing remarkable whatsoever about him. His hair was completely white, which Azula know would have pissed him off to no end…he had always been very vain about his hair.

One time looking at him was enough for her, so she let her eyes wander during the service. A lot had changed since the day Ozai was crowned. Now Zuko had as much gray in his hair as he did black. Azula would have teased him about it, but she knew she wasn't much better. Mai was next to him, and Izumi, and Izumi's husband and small son.

(Ursa and her other family didn't have to come. Lucky them.)

And there was Tom-Tom, of course. He was looking at the pyre, but always the gentleman, he carefully kept his arm within Azula's reach in case she needed to grasp it. His hair was coming out of its topknot _again_, of course, and it was starting to get a hint of gray around the edges. That didn't stop her from continuing to jokingly call him her "boytoy".

And Kazuo, her baby…except he wasn't such a baby anymore. He'd be seventeen next month, and Zuzu had already been Fire Lord at that age! The ladies were starting to fawn over him, much to Azula's consternation. His hair had inherited its topknot-escaping tendencies from his father, although these days he wore it cut short like a lot of the younger generation was doing.

Azula had been so deep in thought, she was quite surprised when the pyre was lit. She watched it burn expressionlessly. Time always seemed to grind to a halt for her when there were flames to watch.

After a very long while, the fire started to die down. Azula took a step towards it with vague plans of spitting on the pyre forming, but someone grabbed her arm before they could fully come to fruition.

It was Kazuo. Honestly, it seemed at times like both her men could read her thoughts.

"We should go now, Mom. Everyone else is," he said. Yes…he was right. So Azula turned and walked away, husband at one side, son at the other.


	21. Aftermath

A/N: So yeah, it's probably a good idea that I upped the rating...this one's pretty angsty and graphic. Also, I'm aware that IRL, it's a no-no to bathe after being raped, but I doubt that would have occurred to Azula (and even if it did, she would have reasoned that no one was going to arrest the Phoenix King.)

If it had just been the physical pain, she thought she would have been able to manage. She was pretty sure something was torn somewhere up there, but it would heal eventually. It always did.

No, it was what Daddy had _said_ to her in the process that was causing Azula to huddle on the bed. He'd said, "How _dare_ you think you have any control over me?" And, "I let you play your little seduction games because I found them amusing, but that's all they were…_games_." And, "You are neither as smart nor as useful as you think you are."

She'd thought she'd been indispensable to him, that she was the only person he had any respect for. And now…she was questioning everything about herself. If she was no longer useful to Daddy, what would he do to her when he got back?

Maybe a bath would help her make sense of things. With difficulty, Azula got up and rang for a servant, throwing on a robe for modesty. Said servant appeared rather…concerned about the state of the room, (was there blood on the sheets? Dammit, Azula had forgotten to check first!) but knew better than to comment.

"Draw me a bath. And then get out of here and don't come back," Azula managed to gasp out.

The servant blinked, then answered, "Yes, Prin…I mean, Fire Lord. Do you want anything added to the water, any scented oils or…"

"_I don't care!_" Azula cried out hoarsely.

"Yes, Fire Lord!" the servant squeaked again as she scurried off.

It took much longer than Azula thought appropriate to get the tub filled (was it always that slow, or was it the servant's fault?), but when it was, Azula decided to be merciful and banish the servant rather than kill her. After all, she couldn't have this woman blabbing to everyone in the palace about what she'd seen, could she now?

As soon as she was alone, Azula slipped the robe off again and gratefully sank into the tub. She made no move to wash herself, and just sat in the water. Perhaps things weren't as dire as they seemed. A long soak would restore her senses, and then she'd burn any incriminating evidence and no one would be the wiser.

And then…Father would come back, and he had spoken of marriage once everything was taken care of. Maybe he'd love her again once she started providing him with more heirs.

She still loved _him_, of course; would die for him. She couldn't _not_.


	22. Mama's boy

A/N: I promised fluff and here it is! Just a reminder that Azula did, in fact, survive all those horrible things and find fulfillment.

Azula had used to think that she'd die of embarrassment if she ever had a child as clingy and needy as her brother had been. Then Kazuo came along.

He wasn't _exactly_ like Zuzu had been (for one thing, he was healthier, and for another, he'd started bending at a younger age), but he did like to stay close to Azula as a child. He'd try to jam himself onto her lap at every opportunity…even when she was sitting at the table and even when he didn't really fit anymore. He drew copious amounts of pictures for her. And he did get into mischief every now and then-she'd be worried if he didn't-but he always knocked it off right away whenever Azula got any more than slightly annoyed at him.

So it turned out that her child was a mama's boy after all. But she didn't mind it as much as she thought she would.


	23. Courtship Part One

A/N: Well, someone asked to see this, so I decided to start writing it! I'm dividing it up into multiple parts (probably three), to keep the Short Story format.

At first, Azula didn't know what to make of that quiet boy who sometimes hung out with Kiyi. He seemed to just be there whenever there was a gathering of any kind. She didn't even know who exactly he was until she saw him sitting next to Mai's parents at a dinner. Oh yeah…the baby from Oma…New Oz…_Omashu_. What was his name again? Tom-Tom, yeah, that's right. What an odd name, she thought.

She wasn't initially bothered when she realized he was shadowing her, but after several months it started to get to her. Finally, one day, in the middle of the trial when stresses were running high, she snapped at him, "Stop following me!"

His face fell, but somewhat unexpectedly, he calmly said, "Oh, okay. Sorry," and left. And that was that. Azula would have known had he just decided to be a bit sneakier. She still saw him at dinners and the like (well, obviously, since he was immediate family of the Fire Lady), but he was careful to not so much as look at her.

Things went on as usual, until they happened to meet again nearly a decade later.

Azula wasn't doing well at the time. The year before, she and Sokka had finally broken off their on-again, off-again relationship of eight years for good, and she had a relapse shortly after and had to be rehospitalized for a few weeks. Then, just when she was getting back on track, Mai had finally had a healthy baby after several miscarriages and one second-trimester stillbirth. Azula supposed she should be happy for her and Zuko, but it just seemed to rub in her face how _she_ was still unmarried and alone, and how her own baby had died so long ago.

So she slipped away during the celebrations to find a quiet area in the back of the gardens to think (if it were anyone else, it might be called sulking, but of course Azula did not _sulk_), only to find that it was already occupied by Tom-Tom.

As soon as he saw her, he hurriedly got up and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just about to leave…"

"You can stay," Azula told him. "Just don't speak to me unless spoken to."

"Okay," he agreed. (Why was he always so damn _agreeable?)_

So for a long time, they stood among the plants quietly. Then Azula asked, "So why were you here?"

"I'm not really one for noisy crowds," he answered (and _when_ had he gotten taller than her, anyway?)

"Huh," Azula answered. If he was expecting her to offer her own sob story, he would just have to be disappointed.

Instead she asked, "Why did you stop following me?"

"You asked me to."

Well, there wasn't any arguing with that. (He was kind of handsome…wait, what was he, like fifteen or sixteen? Definitely off-limits to a twenty-eight-year-old woman.)

So Azula said, "I hereby give you permission to follow me again. Just don't be creepy about it or anything like that." She supposed she could use the company.


	24. Courtship Part Two

Despite what the gossipmongers would claim later, for a long time the two of them were no more than friends. They'd walk in the omnipresent gardens, (when people stared at them, Azula would say something like, "I wasn't aware there was a law saying my acquaintances had to be my age or older. Do you think you could tell me where to look it up in the library?") or they'd eat lunch at one of the slightly less expensive restaurants in the Caldera, with both Azula and the waiters pretending they didn't know who she was.

Tom-Tom wasn't much of a conversationalist-that much was clear early on-but he _listened._ Azula hadn't realized how she needed someone like that in her life until now. Before that, the only person like that had been Ty Lee, and…well, they had patched things up, but Ty Lee was busy studying to be a psychologist and couldn't visit very often. But Tom-Tom wasn't going anywhere.

His parents weren't fond of his association with her, she knew, but he'd come of age at his sixteenth birthday, so there wasn't much they could do about it.

Azula knew that they-like most other people at court-believed her restraint had been permanently broken from what her father did to her, and she was a raging nymphomaniac who was incapable of having any normal relationship. She was determined to prove them wrong. Yes, she'd had no idea how to be a real friend before…but now she was trying to learn.

There wasn't one specific moment that defined the shift from friendship into something else. They started to go out for dinner more often than lunch…maybe that was part of it. Or maybe it was that she never saw Tom-Tom with other girls. They'd also developed a habit of linking arms while doing their garden walks without even realizing they were doing it.

But when Azula put all of it together, she gradually came to realize that the boy was _courting_ her in the old-fashioned way. She hadn't thought anyone did that anymore outside of the more conservative romance novels! She could have ended it with just a few words had she chosen…but she didn't.

Maybe it was cruel to lead this kid on like that…but he was becoming less and less like a kid with each passing day.

And then, on his eighteenth birthday, he kissed her.

It wasn't some big romantic moment under the stars…in fact, it was raining, and it was a nasty, cold rain, not even some picturesque drizzle that could be a sentimental image. When they were coming back from celebrating in the Caldera, they got caught up in the worst of it, and by the time they finally reached the palace, Azula was steaming, both figuratively and literally.

After servants came with towels to help dry the worst of it, Tom-Tom walked Azula to her apartments. She closed the door so nobody could spy on them saying goodbye to each other.

When she turned back from that, she discovered that she was standing a _little_ closer to Tom-Tom than she had thought. Well, actually, she just barely managed to avoid hitting his nose with her forehead.

He took the opportunity, and leaned forward to give her a peck on the lips. When she was his age, Azula would have scoffed at such a chaste attempt (not even any _tongue_!) but it seemed a lot more meaningful coming from him.

Not that she would have objected had he decided to take her right then and there.

This was getting _serious_.

Tom-Tom belatedly realized that he had forgotten to ask her permission first, and said, "I'm sor…"

Azula put a finger to his lips and hissed, "Don't ruin the mood, you dork! Now kiss me again before you say anything stupid."

And he did. Still no tongue, but a bit longer this time. He was surprisingly good at this…maybe he'd practiced with Kiyi when he was younger?

Then Tom-Tom mumbled something about a thing he had to take care of, and ran face-first into the door…apparently, he'd forgotten Azula had closed it. So she had to open it for him, and watched amusedly as he stumbled out into the hallway, ears reddening.

She could hazard a guess as to what this thing he needed to take care of was. It was probably the exact same thing _she_ suddenly needed to take care of.


	25. Courtship Part Three

A/N: I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this, but I was too excited to wait! (I really liked how it turned out)

Despite this significant development, Tom-Tom was still taking things slow. He seemed content not to move beyond kissing, although he did allow Azula to teach him how to include his tongue.

And maybe that was for the best. Even with just kissing, the dirty looks were starting in earnest when they did it in public. What _was_ their problem? Tom-Tom was a man physically, mentally, _and_ legally. These same people didn't seem to have had nearly as much of an issue with Ozai openly seducing girls who were clearly underage. Was it because she was a woman and they didn't like the role reversal?

So she made a point of kissing him even more. This made Zuko facepalm and mutter things about "decorum" and "restraint". Azula rolled her eyes at him and said _he_ was one to talk.

But after a while, people got bored and moved on to the next scandal. And so things continued until _her_ birthday six months later.

Tom-Tom and Azula had elected to eat in this time…a fairly simple meal, although there were plenty of Azula's favorite dumplings, and the cooks had managed to scrounge up some cherries to make ices for dessert. After that, she let Tom-Tom lead her onto the balcony. To be honest, she only thought he was aiming to finally get that perfect kiss under the stars. The weather _was_ actually nice this time…clear sky, and the air was crisp from autumn coming in.

But then…oh no…he was kneeling in front of her and taking her hand, and Azula's thoughts scattered.

"What are you _doing_?" she demanded. She meant for it to sound scary, but it came out as kind of a squawk.

"Asking you to marry me."

Despite the situation, her mouth quirked at the corners.

"Yes, I can _see_ that, you dum-dum. But it's not a very good idea."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not right for you. I should have ended this months ago. Go find a nice girl closer to your own age. Like Kiyi. She's nice. I'm not."

"I don't want Kiyi. I want _you_."

Azula growled. Would he never understand?

He was still kneeling and gazing up at her innocently. This drew some unpleasant parallels in her head, so she abruptly snapped, "Get. Up."

He did, but he didn't take his eyes off her.

Azula sighed and rubbed her temple.

"Look, I hate to break it to you," she said slowly, "But I'm actually a horrible person. Didn't you ever hear of what happened when you were a baby? I convinced Mai not to trade you for that old king."

"Well, I don't have any memory of that, but I obviously wasn't in any danger."

Really. Tom-Tom was _impossible_! Okay, then, if that's how he wanted to play, she'd have to bring out the big ammo.

"I had sex with my father!" she burst out, "And I gave birth to his child!"

Tom-Tom's brows drew together.

"That was hardly your fault…" he started.

"I wanted to kill my own mother!"

"But you didn't."

"I _did_ kill the Avatar!" A pause, then Azula clarified, "He got better. But I wasn't planning that he would!"

Tom-Tom remained unconvinced. Despite her best efforts, Azula was starting to tremble.

"And…and…I lie about everything. Just ask my brother. For all you know, all these things I just said could be lies. Everything I ever _told_ you could be a lie!"

"_I've_ never known you to lie about anything."

That did it. Azula snapped.

"Will you _stop trying to excuse every single bad thing I did_?!"

And that finally got a reaction out of him. He yelled, "How about _you_ stop trying to convince me-and yourself-that you're not worthy of being loved?"

This was the first time he'd ever raised his voice to her. He looked rather taken aback at his own outburst.

"Did you think I didn't already know these things?" he asked. "Well, I did. Most of them, anyway. I just didn't mention them because I thought you'd talk about them when and if you were ready. I know you were hurt, I know you have flaws, but I still love you! If you want me to back off, I will, but my feelings won't change."

"Then you're the biggest fucking idiot I know. And I'm including my brother in that," Azula answered. She would have said more, but her throat closed up and tears sprang to her eyes.

She wasn't sure how she ended up in his arms, but she did, and pressed her face into his shirt in a vain attempt to muffle her sobs. He just kept rubbing her back, saying over and over again, "It's okay, it's okay, I love you, we'll make it work, I promise…"

* * *

Exactly one year later, in the spot in the gardens where they first met, Azula proposed to Tom-Tom. And he said yes.


	26. Report

A/N: I've spent a lot of time lately detailing Azula's more vulnerable side, so I decided to devote this chapter to her being badass. It's a pretty dialogue-heavy piece (I watched _I Claudius_ recently; maybe that has something to do with it!)

"Here's the report," Azula said as she dropped the thick stack of papers on Zuko's desk with a _thunk_.

He glanced at it. "What's it say?"

"You're welcome."

"Wha…ugh. _Thank you_. Now what's in there?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, brother. I was under the impression that you knew how to read. Should I get someone to read it to you; maybe tuck you in bed after?"

"Azula." He didn't even bother getting mad this time.

She gave a put-upon sigh.

"Okay, _okay_, Mr. Lazypants. Basically, Father's supporters still aren't giving up. You'd think after more than five years, they'd learn."

Zuko winced.

"And…Mai's father…?" he asked.

"Appears to have kept his word. He has not been spotted at any of the meetings."

"Well, that's one good thing then," Zuko muttered. He took a breath and added, "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with spying on them like this. They haven't even _done_ anything; they're allowed to have meetings. We can't just arrest them for preferring Father over me when they haven't committed any crimes."

"Why Zuzu, you hurt my feelings! My spies are _very_ exacting. They don't just go around sticking their nose into any old person's business. And besides, some of them have done _plenty_. Let's say…they have certain _interests_."

"What are you even talking about?" Zuko cried. Azula rolled her eyes.

"Oh, for crying out…_pedophiles_, Zuzu."

There was silence for a beat. Then Zuko sputtered, "Now hold on a minute, Azula. That's a serious accusation. I know what you went through was horrible, but not all men are like Father."

"No, I will _not_ hold on a minute! I have been to plenty of 'political meetings' with Father and his friends, and almost every time they'd get drunk and sidetracked. You can't have an abuser without enablers. And a lot of the ones today are that same circle."

"But we just had a whole investigation into that, remember? We got all of his enablers!"

"Correction…you got all of the most obvious ones. The others were smart enough to hide it better."

"I just find it hard to believe that all these people are like that."

"I never said they _all_ were…weren't you listening?" Azula spat out. "But even one is one too many. Are you honestly going to take that risk? Once you and Mai have children, don't you want to assure their safety?"

Well, Zuko did have to concede that point.

"_If_ this is true," he began carefully, "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I was hardly in a position to do that in the hospital," Azula said tartly. "And it's only now that you've started to realize that I can get things done much more efficiently than your ministers. If you would take the time to _read_ the _report_, you'll see it's all in there."

Zuko threw his hands up in surrender.

"All right, all right, I'll read the report. Today. Right now, even. Then we'll see about opening a new investigation."

"Good. And it had better be thorough, or else I'm afraid I'll be quite cross."

Having nothing more to say, she turned to leave. But when she placed her hand on the doorknob, Zuko had one last thought.

"Azula?"

"Yes?" she said without turning around.

"Did any of those men…did they ever…"

"Me? No. Well, when I was twelve, there was one man who got a bit _too_ drunk and groped me, but two seconds later he came down with an acute case of lightning. Father was quite impressed. Took forever to get the stink out of the room, though."

"Oh."

Having said her piece, Azula calmly walked out of the room. Zuko said to himself, "Okay…Page One of…however many pages this is…" and started reading.


	27. Fancy Hair

Today, Azula would be attending a military review-her first public appearance since Li and Lo's little "welcome home" speech. Ty Lee had been sticking close to her since they got back (she was probably worried that Father was still annoyed about the whole "running off to the circus because he was making passes at her" thing), so Azula decided to ask her to do her topknot for the event.

Everything was normal at first, but then after Azula's hair was all brushed out, Ty Lee divided the back part into two sections and started braiding them.

"That's not my topknot," Azula commented.

"I know, but you said this review thing was important, so I wanted to make your hair extra-pretty!" Ty Lee explained.

Azula was about to reprimand her and demand her to put it back the usual way, but then she reconsidered. Maybe she could use this as a sort of…demonstration.

So she gave a curt nod and said, "Carry on."

* * *

A short time later, the members of the Royal Guard were standing at attention. They all saluted when Princess Azula got out of her palanquin…only to be very taken aback once they saw her hair.

Ty Lee had pinned the two braids up into loops and secured them with pink ribbons tied into large bows. There were also several smaller braids running along the top and sides of Azula's head, which were liberally decorated with hairclips in the shape of flowers and butterflies.

Most unfortunately, one of the newer recruits couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"What happened to your hair?!" he cried out…and then clapped his hand over his mouth.

All of the other men and women in the Guard froze, while trying to maintain the air of expressionless calm. But Azula wasn't paying attention to them. Her sense of hearing was excellent, so she did not need to ask where the voice had come from. She sidled up to the poor fool and deliberately held up two fingers near his chest while grinning ferally at him.

"I'm sorry; did you have a problem with how my hair looked?" she purred. He gulped and shook his head.

"I think it's very pretty, don't you?" she added.

"Y-yes, sir! Princess! Sir Princess!" he forced out.

"Well, I'm glad to see we're in agreement. It would be _such_ a shame if we weren't!" she said as she slowly retracted her fingers. The young man barely managed to keep himself from fainting right then and there as the princess walked away and began the inspection as if nothing had happened. He was going to need a stiff drink when this was over…


	28. First Meeting

A/N: I decided to do multiple chapters about Azula's relationship with Ty Lee because I felt like I hadn't given them enough focus yet. This story was partly inspired by the Dionne quintuplets, who were the first known set to survive, and actually _did_ spend their childhood in an institution where they were constantly observed.

* * *

Not so very long ago, they'd been just an ordinary young newlywed couple trying to get by. They'd met in the military, which they'd both signed up for since they couldn't afford higher education, and married while still in their teens. Within a year of the marriage, the wife gave birth to twin girls. Just those two were almost more than they could handle, but they were young and still rather hormonal, and didn't have reliable access to contraception. The inevitable happened a few months later, to their dismay.

First the wife started showing at two months, so they thought it would be _another_ set of twins. Then she got so big that people asked, "Are you sure there's just two in there?" _Then_ she went into labor more than six weeks early, and they were forced to go to the hospital (which would use up the last of their savings).

Even their doctor was astounded when the babies just kept coming and coming.

"_Five_ babies?" he said when it was over, and they were all in a neat row in their incubators. "I still don't quite believe it!"

Apparently, in the whole history of the Fire Nation, it had only happened a handful of times, and none of the babies had lived more than a few days. But all five of these _did_ survive (although one wasn't expected to make it at first). When the story broke, the press was everywhere.

The good thing about this was that they'd never have to worry about money again. The hospital bill was no longer a concern, and they got to move into a big house in the Caldera and even had servants to help care for the children. The bad part was, _everyone_ wanted to get a look at them when they were still in shock about this turn of events. Plus, they were from a working-class background, and didn't have the refinement of their new fancy Caldera neighbors, and knew that people mocked their lower-class dialect.

They'd thought the interest would die down shortly, but all the doctors wanted to see and study this phenomenon for themselves. One even wanted to move the quintuplets permanently to an institution so anyone could come and look at them any time! The horrified parents drew the line there.

Eventually, word of the quintuplets reached the Fire Lord himself, and he invited them to the palace. Imagine! People of their status rarely got to see the Fire Lord (or any of the royal family) from a distance, let alone _meet_ him!

They were concerned about how they'd get two three-year-olds and five two-year-olds to stand still and behave, but the Fire Lord had specifically insisted on their presence, and he couldn't be defied.

So now they were standing outside the palace on this winter day with their seven young daughters, stuffed into formal clothes and feeling like they still didn't belong. Despite the raw chill, the reporters were out in force for this event.

Then the Fire Lord came out with his entire family (he was a lot older and more frail-looking than they'd imagined), and greetings were politely exchanged, and the couple was _just_ starting to think they'd get through this in one piece, when one of their daughters broke ranks.

Little Ty Lee, the runt of the litter, the one who'd given them all such a scare early on, waddled purposefully forward in her thick coat, and before anyone could react, had grasped the hand of the Fire Lord's young granddaughter.

This was it. They were done for. It was treasonous for any commoner to touch royalty without express permission. If they weren't executed on the spot, they'd be dragged off to the dungeons for the rest of their life.

But then-miracle of miracles!-the princess turned to Ty Lee and smiled at her, the Fire Lord laughed, and everyone let out the breath they'd been holding.

"Well, would you look at that?" someone in the crowd was heard to say. "Rumor has it that that princess is supposed to be a complete terror!"

It was to be the start of a complicated but enduring relationship.


	29. Dehornification

A/N: This takes place shortly after the end of my fic "I Smell Fun". If Tyzula isn't your thing, then you're welcome to ignore this chapter.

* * *

After nearly two hours of unbroken silence, Azula finally said, "I'm still horny, you know."

She couldn't see it, but she knew from the sounds that Ty Lee had looked up sharply from whatever papery thing she'd been reading-obviously she'd been startled-but then she answered, "Well, that's pretty easily taken care of, isn't it?"

Azula decided it was safe to take her mask off now since her headache was just about gone, and as she lifted it up she whispered, "It's not like that. I want…a body part that's not available."

"What do you…oh! I get it! You want co…mmmph!"

"_Not so loud_!" Azula hissed as she clamped a hand over Ty Lee's mouth. Belatedly, she realized _she'd_ probably been plenty loud about it the night before.

"Well, I can't help you with the real thing," Ty Lee said once Azula freed her mouth, "But! I do have some fake ones you can borrow! Six of them, in fact. Lots of variation in size and shape…and texture, too!"

Azula tilted her head and asked, "Do I want to know?" Then she answered herself, "No, probably not."

"Oh, wow! You sounded _just_ like Mai right then!"

"And I'm sure she'll be thrilled to hear it," Azula said in a deadpan voice. Then she gave a put-upon sigh and added, "Well, I guess that'll have to do."

"Yay! Let the dehornification process begin!" Ty Lee exclaimed. She took Azula's hand and started to lead her into the bedroom.

"You made that word up on the spot, didn't you?"

"Yep!"

Azula rolled her eyes, but did smile a bit.


	30. That Time

A/N: Last Tyzula chapter for a while...I think!

And probably some of you may have guessed the subject matter based on the chapter title, and though I skate around the actual word in the story itself, I'll come out and say it here: this chapter is about menstruation (no fetish stuff though). You have been warned.

(Also keep in mind that Azula has a blood-clotting disorder in this ficverse.)

* * *

As a nonbender, Ty Lee liked to sleep in as late as she could, and by the time Mai managed to (often literally) drag her out of bed, Azula would always be up, dressed, and usually on the practice field or equivalent location.

But this morning, Ty Lee couldn't find her anywhere in this large house that they'd commandeered from the owners while they planned their next move (Azula had generously given them money so they could stay in an inn). She wasn't outside, she wasn't eating breakfast, and she wasn't reading over dispatches in the living room. Mai said she didn't have a clue where she was. Where could she have gone? It wasn't like her to up and disappear like that.

Maybe she was sick? That was hard for Ty Lee to imagine, since Azula was the very picture of health. She rarely even caught so much as a cold. But Azula's room was really the only place she _hadn't_ looked.

She knocked on the door of the master bedroom. No answer. After several seconds, she tried again, but still nothing.

Finally, Ty Lee warned, "Okay, I'm coming in!" and pushed the door open.

Well, first of all, Azula was nowhere to be found in the room. And secondly, Ty Lee shrieked when she realized _everything_ was covered in blood.

The bedsheets were soaked. Her sleeping robe and underwear, discarded nearby, were in a similar state.

Ty Lee thought, "_Oh no oh no! Who could have done this? Did they hurt Mai, too? No wait, I just saw Mai and she was fine. What if _Mai_ was the one who did this? Help! I'm alone in the house with a murder victim and a killer! What am I going to do?!_"

Then she happened to glance at the bedsheets again, and something occurred to her.

"_Oh…right. Duh!"_

It was then that she saw the small trail of droplets that went across the floor and led into the adjoining bathroom. Aha!

"Azula? Are you in there?"

"What do you think?"

"Can I come in?"

There was a long sigh, and then, "Well, I won't be able to stop you at this point."

So Ty Lee opened the door a crack, and saw Azula hunched over on the toilet, arms crossed around her abdomen.

"It was supposed to be tomorrow," Azula said in a strained voice, as if that explained everything.

When Ty Lee didn't answer, she snapped, "Oh come on, like it's never happened to _you_?"

"Well, yeah, it has…but not like this! That's…a lot of blood. I don't think that's normal."

Azula bared her teeth and let out a little growl at the suggestion that any part of her was less than perfect, and Ty Lee had to backpedal.

"I mean…I just meant that I think you should see a doctor! That might help!" she clarified.

"Oh wow, that's a great idea. Now why didn't I think of that?" Azula said slowly.

Ty Lee beamed, until the princess continued, "Wait, I know why! Because that would give someone in the Earth Kingdom information about a potential weakness. The enemy would pay big money to hear something like that."

"But that would be breaking confidentiality!"

Azula shook her head and murmured, "Oh, what a naïve little thing you are."

Ty Lee insisted, "If you're not going to see a doctor, then _I'll_ be your nurse instead!"

"Ty Lee. This happens every month, remember? So this is the fortieth time, give or take. And I'm pretty sure I didn't die any of the other thirty-nine times."

"Is it…always like this?"

"More or less."

Ty Lee shook her head. She thought she knew Azula better than most, but she'd _never_ had any idea about this! Was she in this much pain every time, but hid it?

Still, she remained firm.

"This time, things will be different. As your nurse, I hereby prescribe bed rest until whenever you feel better…probably at least for today."

"Nurses don't _prescribe_ things, Ty Lee."

"Well, I'm a _special _nurse, then. Now just hold on a few minutes, and I'll change the sheets for you."

Finding a spare set of sheets was easy, but putting them on the bed was another matter. Although Ty Lee had made her own bed in the circus, that had just been a cot. Full-sized beds were a bit more complicated, but she thought she got the sheets on reasonably straight in the end.

She would have taken the old sheets and clothes into town to be laundered, but Azula ordered her to leave them in her room so she could burn them later.

"Well! Is that a bit better?" Ty Lee asked once Azula had cleaned up and gone back to bed.

"Mrph," Azula said, evidently resigned to her fate as she flipped through the dispatches that Ty Lee had fetched for her.

"Just let me know if you need anything!"

"Hmph."

And with that, Ty Lee bounded off to make Azula some herbal tea for the cramping.

Obviously, her patient was determined to be difficult, but Special Nurse Ty Lee was equally determined to persevere in her task.


	31. Trial

A/N: I tried to be as accurate as possible with this, but unfortunately we don't know that much about legal proceedings in the Fire Nation (especially when an Agni Kai isn't an option, and I think Zuko would be steering away from that in general). I do think this would be pretty close to the sort of defense that lawyers would come up with if this trial were happening IRL.

I got the idea for Zhao's foot fetish from a fic in Russian on AO3. I translated it a bit at a time into Google Translate to read it. Of course now, when I want to find the author's name, I can't track it down!

* * *

After more than four years and much legal wrangling, the trial for Ozai's war crimes was finally underway. The prosecutors had also decided to try him for his rape of Azula at the same time, since although there was very little chance of him going free, they wanted as many charges as possible to be absolutely sure.

No one was sure where Ozai had found lawyers willing to defend him, but he had. It must be admitted that they were excellent at their job…namely, being amoral hair-splitters. Azula even wondered if she herself might have pursued a career in law had she not been born into royalty. Unfortunately, however, these people were _not_ on her side.

They claimed that Ozai's words had been _grievously _misunderstood, and he was only planning to _subdue_ the Earth Kingdom, not kill most of the people in it. Any plans for genocide had all been the plans of his ministers, they said, and possibly even Azula herself. (They had gleefully pointed out that _she'd_ been the one to suggest the idea in the first place.)

But by the time it was Azula's turn to testify, she thought she'd gotten through the worst. She'd sat there, in this stupid matronly getup, and managed to stay calm throughout all the mudslinging; hadn't even flinched when her baby's deformities had been described in loving detail, even though she'd never known about the exposed spine before. Apparently, the latter was colloquially known as "the royal disease" due to its onetime prevalence in both the main and cadet branches.

And then there had been her own testimony. She had been forced to relive things she would rather forget, but her voice had remained even. It had to, since Ozai was sitting just a short distance away.

So she thought she was prepared for the cross-examination that followed. She was wrong.

The first few questions weren't so bad…just little things related to her testimony. Obviously the lawyer wanted to catch her in a lie, but was unsuccessful. Then things started getting ugly.

"Would you agree that you are of a…promiscuous nature?" the lawyer abruptly asked Azula.

"_That's_ your defense? That I'm a slut, so I deserved it? I'm disappointed!" Azula said.

"Answer the question."

"Well, I'll admit I'm not some celibate Fire Sage."

The lawyer smirked. Ugh.

"You were betrothed to the late Admiral Zhao for a period of two months when you were thirteen, and then again shortly before his death. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's not exactly a secret. Political alliance."

"And is it true that you attempted to seduce him on multiple occasions?"

At this point, the prosecutor objected, but was overruled.

Once things quieted down, Azula said shortly, "It was hot out. We were walking outside and I took my boots off to dip my feet in the pond. At the time, I was not aware he had a thing about feet."

"We have reports that you did this at least three times."

"Oh, _come_ now," Azula replied, "Do you honestly think thirteen-year-old me was so desperate for sex that I'd have to ask a forty-eight-year-old man for it?"

"_Answer the question_."

"All right, _all right_. Yes, there may have been a few times where I couldn't think of any other way to shut him up. But we were certainly _not_ having sex."

"Very well, then," the lawyer said almost primly, which Azula would have found hilarious in other circumstances. But even she, the great discerner, wasn't quite sure where he was going with this, and that made her uneasy. Not to mention, Ozai appeared quite amused by it. She carefully avoided making eye contact, but could almost feel his gaze.

"We have also determined," the lawyer was saying, "That you burned a house down while on vacation at Ember Island, allegedly because you got angry after a boy named Chan refused your advances. Do you deny this?"

"That's not how it happened."

"So you are calling Chan a liar?"

"Those guilt trips won't work on me."

"So what about the witnesses who claimed that, shortly before this altercation, you had sought information from your friend on how to successfully woo boys? Are you calling them liars too?"

Another objection from the prosecutor; this one was no more successful. There was a horrified gasp and a cry of "That's not…!" and a quick shushing sound. Ty Lee, obviously, though Azula wasn't sure who the shusher was. Zuko, maybe? More likely Mai.

Come to think of it, she was surprised that her brother hadn't spoken up himself yet (he had, of course, recused himself from judging duty). But she couldn't ponder it because the lawyer was awaiting her response.

"I wanted to _flirt_. That's not the same thing as sex," she finally said.

"But what about your little _adventure_ a few months ago? That was no mere flirting."

"That was _one time_."

"Answer the question." (Could he even say anything else?)

"_Fine._ Yes, that one time, I was doing more than flirting."

"Well," the lawyer said as he paced back and forth smugly, "If there was that one time, then who's to say there weren't _other _times? And who's to say that your baby was not, in fact, conceived in one of these encounters, and this _alleged_ rape never happened? After all, isn't it a shame that the evidence happened to be _burned_, so all that's left is circumstantial?"

Suddenly it all clicked together, and Azula was speechless. She fought to keep her face neutral, but her hands were shaking with rage.

"No further questions," the lawyer said airily. It took a few moments for Azula to get the strength to walk away from the witness stand.

The trial continued for a few hours…now some servants were testifying, and were forced to admit that, no, they didn't actually _see_ any sex, they just saw Azula entering and leaving Ozai's room, so all they could say was that Azula had been sleeping in that room, which was not a crime in and of itself. Then there was a laundress who had actually _seen_ the evidence, and if Ozai's lawyer couldn't directly wave that away, he could bring up every little incident in the laundress's past in an attempt to discredit her.

But Azula wasn't able to pay much attention to any of that. She stared off into space, trying to convince herself that there weren't tears forming in her eyes.

Finally, court adjourned for the day. Azula could vaguely hear people calling her name, Ty Lee among them, but she walked right past them as if they were nothing more than tricks of the light.


	32. 48

A/N: Sorry about the scarcity of updates recently...I've been busy with school and getting over a bad cold. Plus I've already written most of my biggest ideas, so it might take me a while longer to think up more.

"Ha!" Azula exclaimed abruptly as she stood up from her chair, with quite impressive speed considering she was nine months pregnant.

Tom-Tom also stood up-"bolted up" might be a better description-and quickly asked, "What is it? Is it the baby?"

"_No_, silly. Well, I suppose it is in a way. You see, it has now been…"-Azula checked her watch to make sure-"…forty-seven hours and fifty-five minutes since Katara said she thought my labor would start within forty-eight hours. And I checked my watch then too, so I know. I can't wait to prove her wrong!"

Her adorable idiot of a husband scratched the back of his head and cautiously said, "But I thought you said you just wanted this baby out as soon as possible."

Did she really have to explain _everything_ to him?

"Well, yes," she said slowly, "But I want this just a little bit more."

"Oh. Okay."

Azula shook her head as she said, "You and your 'oh, okay's! Anyway, now it's been forty-seven hours and fifty-seven minutes, and I'm leaving right now to go and find Katara and…"

She paused, then grimaced.

"_Ow_. Dammit."


	33. Birth

A/N: So I've written several childbirth scenes in the past, but I think this one is the most detailed. As someone who has never given birth herself (and hopefully never will), I can only hope it's accurate.

* * *

From start to finish, the ordeal took eight hours almost on the nose. This was less than one-fourth the length of Azula's first labor, but having to put up with Katara made it seem much longer.

She had promised not to bend any lightning, but if _she_ had to suffer, she was determined to make Katara miserable right along with her.

"Yep, you're dilating!" Katara was saying, hand practically touching Azula's diaphragm. "Too much to be a false alarm. Nice effacement, too."

Azula rolled her eyes and drawled, "I'm sure everyone was on the edge of their seats, just _dying_ to hear that information."

Katara's brow furrowed as she withdrew her hand, but she just said, "Well, if you're not interested in hearing it, then I won't tell you."

"I never said that," Azula retorted.

And so it continued, with Azula making cutting remarks at every opportunity. After a couple hours, when Katara stepped out of the room briefly, Tom-Tom finally confronted Azula.

"I know you two don't get along, but remember that she traveled all the way here from Republic City, away from her family, just to help you. Try to keep that in mind? Please?"

Azula muttered, "Pff…whatever." But she did try to be ever-so-slightly more polite, for Tom-Tom's sake if not for Katara's.

* * *

The ladies of the court began gradually filing in, and the bedroom, despite being large, felt rather crowded. This baby was going to be third in line to the throne, so there must be multiple credible witnesses to prove that there had been no illicit baby-swapping going on. Mai and her ladies-in-waiting were among the first, followed by Ursa (even after all these years, Azula's relationship with her mother was cool at best). Then Kiyi, which made Azula smirk, since this baby had been conceived the night after Kiyi's first was born. Azula wondered if Kiyi would reciprocate this.

After several other women that Azula couldn't care less about, Ty Lee bounced in…literally.

"Oh good, I'm so glad I made it in time!" she exclaimed. "I had paperwork to do, and it took longer than I thought. How far along are you?"

"The Omniscient Delivery Goddess says I'm more than halfway there," Azula answered.

"The wha…oh, you mean Katara?"

"Yes, I believe that is the name she uses in her mortal form."

Even Mai had a hard time maintaining a straight face at that one.

"What's so funny?" Katara asked as she returned from a bathroom break. Everyone suddenly got intensely interested in random pieces of furniture.

But as time wore on, things got less and less humorous. Azula had vowed to be a proper lady and not scream. Katara said it was neither healthy nor natural to hold the screaming in.

"Everyone does it. _I_ did it," she explained.

"Everyone _except_ me," Azula ground out. And she thought she was doing a good job of it, until an unexpectedly strong contraction made her burst out with a "_FUCK_!"

Some of the older onlookers looked offended by this, but all Katara did was say, "Remember to breathe. Deep breaths. In through your nose and out through your mouth."

Tom-Tom, attempting to inject some levity into the situation, added, "You heard her. Out through your mouth. Not your ears."

Azula's only response was to pinch his arm. Hard.

"_Ow_! Okay, okay, sorry."

After that, he kept his mouth shut.

A short while later, Azula moaned, "Is this ever going to end?"

"You want me to check?" Katara asked.

"_No."_

But just a few minutes later, she caved and let Katara check.

"Almost!" Katara informed her brightly.

"What do you mean, _almost?!"_ Azula roared.

"No hidden meaning."

Before Azula could reply, another contraction hit. Katara asked if she wanted her to try some healing waterbending for the pain. Azula snarled at her.

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Katara said. Azula conceded that she was a _very_ hard person to rattle these days, and thus felt some grudging respect for her.

* * *

Even more time elapsed. Mai took out a book. Ursa and Kiyi worked on needlepoint projects. Ty Lee paced, and Tom-Tom buried his head in his hands.

It was approaching midnight when Katara finally said, "It's time!" and dragged in some odd contraption from the hallway. It was like a chair, except the middle of the seat was missing. She placed this right in front of the foot of the bed.

"You sit on it. To push," she explained when Azula stared at it blankly.

"Don't peasants use those?" Azula gasped out.

"Yes, but I've found that the pushing goes faster this way. When you're lying down, the baby has to work its way _up_."

Well, that did make some amount of sense. Azula obediently got on it as Katara arranged the water basin and towels and blankets, but grumbled under her breath that she hoped it had been _cleaned_ since it was last used.

Tom-Tom held her left hand, and Ty Lee held her right. Ursa had a strange look in her eyes for a moment-had she been hoping Azula would ask _her_ to be on the right?-but it passed quickly.

Things progressed rapidly from there, without major complications. Unfortunately, partway through, Azula had a flashback and a panic attack in front of everyone. She swore she could feel those scissors cutting into her flesh again…

She wasn't sure exactly what she did then, but a few seconds later the room came back into focus. Ty Lee and Tom-Tom were cradling her shoulders with their free arms, and Katara was murmuring, "It's all right, you're safe here, okay? It won't be long now. The head's crowning…you want someone to get you a mirror so you can see?"

Azula managed to shake her head. She couldn't think about anything other than getting rid of this overwhelming pain and pressure.

Katara kept commanding her to push harder, and harder still, until she abruptly said, "Stop!"

Azula looked at her with uncompromised fury, and she explained, "Big baby. I want to make sure the shoulders don't…get…stuck…there we go! One more ought to do it."

Azula threw her head back and howled. She felt everything rushing out, and then Katara exclaimed, "It's a boy!"

There was much excitement from the audience, but Azula said hoarsely, "It's…not crying."

Katara, who was rubbing the baby briskly with a towel, said, "Sometimes it takes them a few seconds to get the idea…"

Then there was a shuddering gasp, followed by a wail that steadily grew in volume.

"See?" Katara said. "He's perfectly healthy. Already turning nice and pink, with good muscle tone." She held him up and told him, "Look, there's your mommy!"

The squalling baby was placed in Azula's arms, and suddenly her heart felt all wobbly. Everyone else in the room seemed to melt away.

"Oh, hush," she whispered. "What do you have to complain about? The hard part's over for you. _My_ body still has to put itself back together."

Despite the scolding words, she gently stroked his head and face.

After the cord was cut (Katara said she wanted to wait until it was done pulsing…ew), the afterbirth collected, and the bleeding controlled, Azula and her baby were lifted back onto the bed.

Tom-Tom was teary-eyed, and once the baby quieted down a bit, Ty Lee was more than willing to pick up his slack. Everyone pressed forward to get a closer look, but the mighty Katara would only let Ursa, Kiyi and Mai through.

Then Katara turned back to Azula, and beamed at her. Azula couldn't help but smile back. A little.


	34. Ceremony and Celebration

A/N: Even though I divided this story, this part _still_ ended up going long. Sheesh.

Quick warning: Brief discussion of various bodily functions associated with labor and birth. And I realized that I forgot to put in any mention of Kazuo being burped after feeding, so just assume that Katara or a servant was doing it (Azula wouldn't want to risk getting her nice robe dirty, after all!)

* * *

She didn't recall dozing off, but she must have at some point, because the next thing she knew, she was being rudely awoken by a loud boom.

"It's just the cannons," Tom-Tom explained soothingly.

Azula, still trying to pull her thoughts together, said, "Cannons? War?"

"No, they're firing the cannons to announce the birth. Nothing bad whatsoever."

Birth? Oh, right. That would explain the soreness.

As she opened her eyes fully, Azula saw that the lights had been dimmed, and Tom-Tom was the only person left in the room other than her. She felt a sudden spark of anxiety.

"Where is he?" she demanded in a much stronger voice.

"Safe with Katara. She took him away after you fell asleep, to wash him and wrap him up, then I held him for a bit, and now she's looking after him again. She didn't want to disturb your nap."

"How altruistic of her. I'm sure that that was the only reason, and she didn't also want to keep him for herself."

"Well, that too," Tom-Tom conceded, but just then Katara walked into the room, bundle in arms, right on cue.

"Good! You're up! I think someone's getting hungry!"

Azula held out a hand.

"First things first," she said. "I _really_ need to pee."

This was accomplished with minimal fuss, and then Katara brought the baby out. He had been snugly swaddled as promised, and looked much better now that he'd been degunked.

"Now you can brag to your friends back home that you have seen every single body part of the Princess Azula," Azula stated dryly as she loosened the ties of her robe.

"It's nothing I haven't seen hundreds of times before," Katara said, then cautioned, "Now, sometimes the first attempt doesn't work. If it doesn't, that's okay, we can try again in a little while…"

But the baby found his target easily and started feeding with gusto.

"…and I see that's not going to be a problem here!" Katara finished.

"Huh. Greedy little thing, aren't you?" Azula said, addressing her son. "No wonder you're so big…you hogged all the nutrients in the womb!"

"So have you thought up a name for him yet?" Katara asked.

"Kazuo. It means 'messy eater' in the old language," Azula answered. Indeed, Kazuo was creating quite a few dribbles.

Everyone paused a beat, and Katara said, "Somehow, I don't think that's really what it means."

"Of course not," Azula snapped.

Tom-Tom clarified, "It has a few different meanings, but the one we're using is 'peaceful'."

This wasn't the whole story…Kazuo was just his given name. His _full_ name would be announced seven nights from now, with several very long and complicated additional names tacked on. These were chosen by the Fire Sages, and were selected for auspiciousness based on the baby's time, date, and even location of birth. The number of names varied, but usually it was between five and ten. Azula wasn't even quite sure what all _her_ extra names were.

She was trying to recall them when her train of thought was disrupted by even more loud noises, which caused even Kazuo to stop feeding momentarily.

"Fireworks?" Katara asked.

Tom-Tom went to the window and opened the curtain a crack.

"Fireworks," he confirmed. "They'll be setting them off all night. The people are so happy about a new royal birth!"

Azula commented, "I presume they're happier about the vacation from work and the free alcohol that'll be flowing in the fountains for a week, but whatever you want to think, Dear Husband."

"They're equally happy about them both!" Tom-Tom insisted.

"Whatever you say…"

By this time, Kazuo had stopped feeding and had fallen asleep, and Katara had discreetly slipped away.

"I still can't quite believe he's real," Azula breathed. She turned to Tom-Tom and asked, "Can you?"

"I can't," he replied, and walked over to them. She smiled up at him, and he kissed first her, then Kazuo.

Then something occurred to Azula which brought the moment to a halt.

"I need to ask you a personal question," she hissed.

"Oh? Is everything okay?"

"Lean in closer. No, closer than that," she ordered him. Then, when he was close as he could get, she asked him, "Did I poop?"

Tom-Tom immediately frowned and leaned away. He stuck a finger in his ear and moved it around, while saying, "I can't have heard that right."

"Oh, you did. I have read that…such things…often happen during labor, and I was…"

She couldn't bring herself to say the rest, but Tom-Tom got the idea.

"Well, if you did, I didn't notice it," he told her.

"You don't have to lie to spare my feelings, you know."

"I'm not lying."

Azula raised an eyebrow, but let the subject drop. But that was one of the things she loved about her husband…you could ask him the most outrageous questions, and he'd try to answer them as thoroughly and rationally as he could…even if he was actually completely confused.

Neither of them could think of what to say after that, so he sat on the bed and the trio cuddled together in silence.

Eventually, Katara came back in and moved Kazuo into the old royal cradle-which Azula herself had lain in as a baby-and everyone tried to get a bit of sleep before the busy day ahead.

* * *

Azula actually got a halfway decent amount of rest, even though she had to wake up briefly twice for feedings.

She woke up for good around mid-morning, gave Kazuo yet another feeding and ate a light breakfast herself, and then prepared for her audience.

Naturally, it would not do to receive courtiers in her own bedroom, so she and Kazuo had to be wheeled down to the proper audience room, complete with a bed of state resplendent with a canopy, and a fancier cradle for the baby.

She was given a sponge bath, and her hair was washed and combed, but left loose. Light makeup was applied, and she was dressed in clean nightclothes with a thick embroidered dressing gown over all. Then she was propped up in bed with about twenty pillows.

The goal was to look tired, but _artfully_ so. Were some of these men going to think that this was what women _actually_ look like the morning after giving birth? Well, what they couldn't see was that under these nice, clean clothes, Azula was wearing what more or less amounted to a diaper for the bleeding. Their loss.

The first visitor was, of course, Zuko. He tried so hard to be formal.

"As Fire Lord of this land, I hereby extend the utmost congratulations on this felicitous event and…Hey! He looks just like you!"

Keyword: _tried_.

The other men were less awkward. A routine developed: a nobleman would approach her, bow, offer his congratulations, and solemnly inspect the cradle and its contents. Their gifts were being arranged in large piles by servants. Maybe she could ask Ty Lee to open them for her if the servants didn't get to it first; she'd always loved tearing off wrapping paper.

She did notice the group of men whispering together in the back of the room…Ozai supporters, most likely. Even after twenty years, there were still some who clung to it, and the birth of a male heir to Azula, and not Zuko, only served to rejuvenate them. She'd have to watch them carefully.

By the time this ceremony was over (with a short lunch/feeding break), it was well into the afternoon, and Azula swore if she heard the word "congratulations" one more time, she'd gather up Kazuo and hide in the closet until they all gave up and left.

Once she was back in her own room, Tom-Tom walked up to her and said, "Um, I know you must be exhausted, but the people outside have been waiting to see us since dawn, and they'd be really happy if you could make an appearance. But only if you feel up to it!"

Azula said she thought she might be, and gingerly stood up. But she had scarcely taken two steps when she began to feel faint.

"…Maybe this was a bad idea. Come on, let's get you back to bed," Tom-Tom urged.

"I'm fine. Just give me a second…there, it's cleared up now."

She still couldn't walk without leaning heavily on Tom-Tom, but they made it to the window. They paused to make sure everything looked just right, and that Kazuo was held so the crowd would be able to catch a glimpse of his face.

Then they signaled to a servant, who quickly pulled back the curtains and opened the window, and the noise was deafening.

Azula looked out at the crowd. There appeared to be thousands of people out there…and it seemed like every single one of them was cheering for _her_ and her new family! It was a sound she thought she might never hear again.

So she rested her head on Tom-Tom's shoulder as he waved with the other arm, and enjoyed it while it lasted.


	35. Interlude 3: Royal Seals

A/N: Just another headcanon thingie. The next chapter _might_ be quite a bit sexier...we'll see if I can get over my embarrassment long enough to write it!

In the Fire Nation, the rules concerning the usage of royal seals were convoluted at best, and virtually incomprehensible at worst. There was, for example, a difference between the seal used by the heir to the throne, and those used by other _male_ children of the Fire Lord, _and_ those used by other _female_ children of the Fire Lord. There was also a distinction between the seal type used by blood royalty versus those used for royalty by marriage. And this was just for the immediate royal family…the guidelines for more distant relatives were best not discussed at all.

Each type had a basic outline, but the details were individually customized. Each member of the immediate royal family would be assigned one of these customized designs at some point, usually by the age of twelve (although there were exceptions, such as when young children inherited the throne). The cadet branches had to make do with just generic designs. And woe to anyone who used the wrong one! It was considered a huge scandal, and courtiers who had nothing better to do would hash over the ramifications for weeks.

Of course, some people just didn't care. After Prince Zuko's banishment, Princess Azula was known to use his seal whenever she could get away with it. During the time between the Phoenix King's departure and Sozin's Comet, she also ordered her father's seal to be brought to her room. No one was brave enough to tell her to wait until after the coronation, when a new Fire Lord seal would be made just for her. It was said that she stayed up the whole night, melting wax onto paper and pressing the seal onto it, over and over and over again…


	36. The Sexy Chapter

A/N: I was _going_ to give this chapter a proper name, but I kept thinking of it as "The Sexy Chapter" when I was planning and writing it, so I couldn't resist!

Azula's expectations for her wedding night were not very high, to say the least. A few days before, Tom-Tom had confessed to her that he was still a virgin. At first, Azula had laughed and said, "Good one!" But then she looked at his face and realized he was actually _serious_.

After giving it some thought, she supposed it made sense. He did come from a very conservative family. But this didn't stop her from freaking out a bit. She'd never had sex with a guy who was a virgin…what was she supposed to _do_ with him? Would he, like, break or something if she was too enthusiastic? And she didn't mean mentally...she literally imagined him shattering into a million pieces in the heat of the moment. Lovely.

Well, at least he wasn't going to be some gross old guy pawing at her…which had seemed like it was inevitably going to be the case when she was younger. So she decided to put a good face on it. She knew Tom-Tom would try his best to be gentle and considerate.

The wedding itself went by smoothly enough, as did the feast, although Azula wished the servers could just hurry up with the fanfare and flourishes before every single course, because the food was always lukewarm by the time they were done. But Azula and Tom-Tom did take the opportunity to squeeze each other's thighs under the table. One time Azula's hand went a bit higher…this produced an interesting reaction, and it was amusing to see Tom-Tom try to come up with an excuse when someone asked if he was all right.

But finally, the chefs ran out of ways to prepare fish, and the guests couldn't think up any more long-winded speeches and toasts, so they managed to sneak away. And now, here they were, changed out of their formal clothing and standing awkwardly in the suite of rooms that was to be their new home for now.

"So, uh…what do you want to do?" Tom-Tom asked eventually.

Azula tilted her head at him and said, "Surely your parents aren't _so_ strict that they haven't even given you The Talk yet?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't want to do anything _you_ didn't want."

In response, Azula wordlessly stood and slipped off her robe (naturally, she was wearing nothing under it). That should clear up any doubts he had.

She wasn't surprised that he looked like he'd just seen a 400-foot-tall platypus-bear fly past. Her figure was still youthful and trim-despite the faint stretch marks and her boobs not _quite_ being what they once were-and she was proud of all the work she put into maintaining it.

"You like?" she said as she smirked.

All Tom-Tom could do was swallow nervously. But he didn't take his eyes off her for one second.

"Have you ever seen a naked woman before?" Azula inquired after a few moments.

"O…only in drawings," Tom-Tom managed to croak out. Azula waved a hand in dismissal.

"Well, now you can look at a real one as much as you want. Shall we retire to bed?"

What followed…well…it wasn't as awkward as it could have been. True, it didn't take very long, but it felt nice enough while it lasted. Not to mention, Tom-Tom's body wasn't bad to look at either. He had a cute sprinkling of moles on his chest, which caused him to make equally cute noises when they were licked. Azula made a mental note to check elsewhere on his body later.

After Tom-Tom rolled to the side and caught his breath, he turned back to her and asked, "Did you…um…you know…finish?"

"I swear, you are the most _proper _man who has ever walked the planet," Azula commented while stretching. "We just had sex, and you're _still _afraid to say the word 'orgasm'."

"Yeah…that."

Azula bopped him with a throw pillow, then answered, "No, as a matter of fact. Doesn't mean you're a terrible person; it just happens that way sometimes. There'll be plenty of other times to try."

"But I want it to be fair. I don't want to have gotten off while knowing you didn't."

Azula felt moved in spite of herself. Honestly, he wasn't always the brightest streetlamp in the city, but he was such a _doll_, and sometimes she still wasn't sure she deserved him.

So she said, "If you insist," helped him coat his fingers with oil from a flask beside the bed, and guided his hand down.

"Other side," she corrected when he started rubbing.

"There's a difference?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

Tom-Tom seemed a bit nonplussed by this information, but did as he was told.

"Is there good?" he asked. Azula's sharp intake of breath served as the answer.

"Start out slowly," she instructed once she found her voice again. "I'll tell you when to go faster."

Given his inexperience, Azula found it surprising that it took less than ten minutes for her to arch her back and gasp, "_Oh_," and then a few seconds later, a longer "Oooohhhhh."

"You can stop now," she informed Tom-Tom when she was restored to her senses and realized he was still obediently rubbing.

"Did I do okay?" he asked.

Azula thought with a little practice, he could turn out to be better than Sokka, and Sokka had been _really_ good. But she just said, "I think you did a bit better than okay."

They ended up having sex twice more that night…once at some point in the middle of the night, and once when it was getting on towards morning. Azula was a bit sore that next day from all that activity after years of disuse, and they both got a fair share of teasing, but she thought it was worth it. Plus, Tom-Tom didn't break. That was nice.


	37. Monster

A/N: This is another dark one. Azula's about four in this, so she's not yet completely capable of understanding how death works.

WARNING: Animal death.

* * *

Azula was in her favorite spot in the garden, hiding among the trees, when she saw the baby turtleduck. She'd run away when her nurse's back was turned, so she wouldn't have to eat those stupid, icky, mushy vegetables on her plate. She wondered whether the turtleduck had run away too. This was a good distance from the pond…it wasn't even visible from here. Had it walked all this way?

Maybe she should find someone to help her take it back to the pond. That was what Mommy would want. But then she remembered what Daddy said. He told Azula that she was a big girl now, and she'd have to practice in case she had to kill a person in the future. She wasn't sure why she'd ever want to do that, but she thought pleasing him was more important than doing something Mommy liked.

So she lifted her foot and brought it down on the baby turtleduck as hard as she could. She heard a little _crunch_ sound. When she removed her foot and looked at the damage, she thought she'd be happy, but instead it just felt…weird. It hadn't fully occurred to her until just now that you couldn't take it back. Her tummy started hurting.

"Azula!" Mommy's voice rang out. "There you are! We were all so worried! You can't just run off like…" she trailed off as she saw what had happened.

"_What did you do?!" _ she screamed. Azula opened her mouth to try to explain, but Mommy didn't give her a chance.

"You…you _monster_!" Mommy gasped out, and then slapped her across the face. Then _she_ ran away, right after telling Azula not to!

Azula's head was spinning from the impact. Mommy had said she was a _monster. _Was she?

Her tummy hurt even worse now. She bent over and threw up, then stumbled off in a random direction. She couldn't see very well due to the tears in her eyes. Therefore, after she'd walked a short distance, she was taken aback when she bumped into Daddy.

"What happened?" he asked.

Azula couldn't quite find the words, so she just sobbed, "I…I messed up!"

"Why don't you come with me, and we can talk about it?" Daddy said. He picked her up without waiting for an answer and carried her away. He walked for a long time, and Azula buried her face in his robe the whole way. It did feel comforting. Her nurse had used to carry her, but she didn't do it much anymore because she said Azula was too big for it.

When they stopped, she looked up and saw that they were in Daddy's room. He took her to the bathroom and wiped the throw-up from her face, and got her a glass of water to rinse her mouth with. Then they went back to the bedroom and sat on the bed, and he asked again what had happened.

Azula started, "I tried to kill an aminal…"

"Animal," Daddy corrected.

"Animal…like you said, but Mommy saw. And she hit me!"

Daddy said, "Hmmm…" and stroked his beard and thought. Then he added, "You did well for your first time. Next time I'm sure you'll do even better. Now come sit on my lap."

"Okay," Azula agreed, and did as he said. He stroked her hair and told her she was a good girl, and that made her happy.

Yes, next time she'd do better. And next time, she'd make sure Mommy didn't see.

She was so lost in thought, she scarcely noticed when Daddy's hands moved lower.


	38. Lost

A/N: I decided to try writing exactly what was going through Azula's head right after _The Search_. I'm also planning a companion chapter to this, naturally entitled "Found".

* * *

In the forest, Azula had gone on a journey that no one would-or _could_-begin to understand. So later, she didn't even bother trying to explain it.

She had visions of seemingly infinite strange and exotic lands, one flash after another. She saw vast cities, floating islands, icy wastelands…even a sea of fire. Yet in the blink of an eye, she'd always be transported right back to where she came from, this forest that was so overgrown it appeared to be in perpetual night.

In between that, she stumbled on, not even particularly trying to get out of the forest at this point. She didn't even stop to relieve herself, so she might have had an accident…not that she cared very much. She'd also turned an ankle on a root and was covered with cuts. Sometimes she wanted to just curl up and wait to die. But she had to keep moving, because it was the only thing that kept the voice at bay.

"_Azula…_" it would hiss if she paused for even a breath. It sounded familiar, but Azula could never quite place it. She sensed someone standing just out of her field of vision, but no matter how quickly she turned her head, the figure vanished.

She may have had more endurance back when she was in peak physical condition, but the enforced idleness of her hospitalization had gotten her out of shape. Inevitably, after she'd been walking for hours or days or years for all she knew, her legs fell out from under her and she collapsed from exhaustion. Now nothing could hold the voice back.

"_Azuuuuuuulaaaaaaaaa…"_ it crooned.

"Go away," Azula whispered.

"_No one ever loved you_," the voice insidiously continued. Azula covered her ears, but it did no good.

"_Your dear _daddy_ just wanted to turn you into his little sex-crazed fucktoy, to quench his most secret urges. A slave to all of his disgusting kinks. And it worked, didn't it? Sex is _all_ you ever think about_. _Do you honestly think, had he escaped from prison and been restored to power, he would have bothered to rescue you? That he would have cared one whit for you or your child?_"

All Azula could do was rock from side to side and chant, "Go away, go away…"

"_And your mother_," the voice said as it just spoke right over her, _"She never even gave you a chance_. _How humiliating it was for her to have to give birth to you in a storage closet in a basement because of that storm. And then you'd scream relentlessly whenever she held you…she _hated _you_. _That incident with the turtleduck just sealed the deal._ _But she found a replacement, didn't she? She took your baby and thought you wouldn't notice if she made her appear older._"

Now Azula was reduced to pathetic whimpering.

"_Your so-called friends? They just saw you as a ticket to the good life. Ty Lee was one of seven sisters…she pretended to be your friend and lover because it made her feel special. Then she left when she got bored of you. Oh, how she hated you for making her leave the circus…and she ran off again the first chance she got, didn't she? So did Mai. To Mai, you were just that girl her parents forced her to hang out with as a kid."_

Azula started sobbing.

"_Now Lu Ten_," the voice said thoughtfully, _"I may have misspoken before. _He_ may actually have cared about you. He caught your father dry-humping you the day he left for Ba Sing Se, but to his despair he didn't have time to do anything about it then. He was planning to marry you once he got back…in name only, at least for a while, but he hoped it would be enough to shelter you from Ozai. But Ozai caught wind of this, didn't he? They said Lu Ten was killed by Earth Kingdom soldiers, but that's not true. It's all your fault he died! And your uncle Iroh hated you so much for it, even though Lu Ten had told him about the abuse, he didn't so much as lift a finger to stop it."_

The voice paused for an instant, but Azula thought she knew what (or rather, who) was coming next…

"_Oh, and we can't forget Zuzu. Your brother wasn't yet two years old when you were born, but he knew a monster when he saw one. You think he never thought about teaching you a lesson? He never fantasized about raping and dominating you until you pleaded for mercy?"_

If Azula could speak coherently, she might have pointed out that it was hypocritical of this voice to accuse _her_ of being obsessed with sex. But the voice appeared to have read her mind, because the next thing it said was, "_But I _am _you_, _Azula."_

Then the speaker stood at last where Azula could see, and she stared into her own face. But it was a bit different…older, maybe.

"_See? This is what you thought you were, how you saw yourself…a fully-grown, powerful woman. But you're nothing more than a scared child. Forget loving you…no one even needed you!"_

A scream tore out of Azula's throat as she heard her deepest, darkest fear being vocalized…one she'd scarcely been able to admit even to herself. Somehow, she finally found the energy to stumble to her feet and hobble off again. She felt like she was on fire with the pain, but kept forcing herself to move…and move…and move.

Suddenly, when her body was close to giving out again, she saw light. She thought at first it was another hallucination, but then she brushed past the last few trees and was out of the forest and back in the sun . She appeared to be in a field of some sort, with a village in the distance. Had she gotten to the other side, or had she just gone in a big circle? It didn't make a big difference, really, because she no longer cared what happened to her, or even whether she lived or died.

"_Remember what I said…_" the voice whispered as it faded away.

Azula felt freezing cold all of a sudden, despite the warmth of the day. Her pace slowed to a lurching walk.

Then she heard shouts, and some peasant farmers in those funny cone-shaped hats, who had presumably been working the fields, ran up to her. They were grasping her shoulders and asking questions in loud voices, but she couldn't focus on what they were saying. Her head lolled, and all that came out of her mouth in response was gibberish. Then, as one of the farmers went off to get help, Azula pitched forward, and everything went black.


	39. Found

A/N: When I was planning this out, I realized there were some parallels to Korra facing her fears in the latest episode of LoK. Not intentional, but I thought it was kind of neat. This also refers to events from "Making Amends," so you'll have to have read that to get the full story.

* * *

When Azula next became conscious, it was like she was seeing everything through a veil, with the sound muffled. She was somewhat cognizant of being led into a house, cleaned, wrapped in a blanket, and given a bowl of some kind of bland gruel, but it all had a dreamlike quality to it. She drifted in and out of sleep as people talked tensely in the background, so maybe some of it _was_ a dream.

Then there were other, more important voices…she thought she might have even heard Zuzu's. The blanket was taken off, and replaced with a better-quality one. Then she was bundled into a palanquin, and there may have also been a boat at some point.

After that, it seemed like she was always under attack. She was constantly being pinned down, poked and prodded, and stuck with needles. For every faceless assailant that she managed to defeat, ten more seemed to spring up in its place.

She itched everywhere, and scratched at herself until she bled. They trimmed her nails and put mitts on her hands, but she ripped the mitts off every chance she got. Even the thinnest layer of fabric made the itching worse and felt suffocatingly hot, so she stripped off her clothes too.

Time lost all meaning for her. She just assumed things had been like this forever, and would continue the same way.

And then, abruptly, Azula heard her mother's voice and woke up.

* * *

"Welcome back!" Dr. Yisheng said later, as the sedative wore off.

Azula blinked. What was _he_ doing here? She'd escaped, right? But this bed looked familiar…and the walls…and that shelf…she groaned as she realized she was back where she started from.

Dr. Yisheng ignored this and started rattling off questions…asking if she knew what her name was, what _his _name was, what year it was, where they were, and on and on. Normally, Azula wouldn't have humored him, but she was still feeling groggy and wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

At any rate, he appeared satisfied, and told her, "Your family will be so excited to hear that you're lucid again!"

The word "family" triggered something in Azula's brain. Now she remembered what had started this all in the first place…Ursa! How dare she just drop in to visit like nothing had happened and feign ignorance of…everything? And how dare the doctors _let_ her?

Thankfully, Dr. Yisheng seemed to sense her rage building, and decided to make a hasty exit and leave Azula to her thoughts.

And as the days passed, Azula did do a _lot_ of thinking. The voice in the forest had made her question everything she thought she knew about herself. Maybe it was right…maybe her family didn't need her. If that was the case, then she'd just have to prove her worth to them all over again. If people weren't going to help her, then she'd forge her own path and help herself.

Ursa made a return visit after a while, and while Azula acted quite coldly to her, it did get her pondering things even more. Ursa had not done a good job as a mother, but at least she seemed to be aware of that now and wanting to turn over a new leaf. And she wasn't doing it half-heartedly either…she started coming over once a week, like clockwork. Azula wasn't going to forgive her quite yet, and probably never would entirely, but perhaps she could manage not being openly hostile.

She began to feel like she was getting a grip on herself, now that she wasn't fighting her treatment anymore. There'd been a shakeup of many of the people responsible for her care, and the new doctors apparently realized that they'd have to change their approach if they wanted to see results. So, sensing that they were actually trying this time, and having run out of other options, Azula actually cooperated with the therapy. She dutifully read the cutesy little handouts they gave her about how It Was Not Her Fault, took her medicine, practiced her art every day, and even attended a couple of group therapy sessions.

But her biggest test was one she had to face on her own.

About a month after her figurative awakening, Azula was also _literally_ awake…in the middle of the night, as often happened to her. She was lying in bed, trying to go back to sleep, when:

"Why, hello Azula."

She rolled over onto her other side and saw her father leaning casually against the shelf.

"Oh. It's you," she said.

"Now is that any way to address your father?"

Instead of answering, Azula cut to the chase and asked, "What do you want?"

Ozai threw up his hands in mock surrender as he said, "I'm surprised at you! Here I've come all the way here to rescue you, and this is the welcome I get?"

"First off, I think I would have heard about it had you escaped," Azula pointed out. "And secondly…it's completely dark in this room. Well, except for that sliver of light from the hallway. So how am I able to see you so clearly? Terribly sorry, but I don't think you're real."

"Of course I'm real," Ozai snapped. "Now stop this nonsense and come with me."

"No, I don't think I will, thanks," Azula replied.

Ozai's voice had that dangerously-quiet quality as he inquired, "And why not?"

"Because I've realized that what you did to me was wrong. Even when it _felt_ right. I don't care _how_ much your daddy ignored you when you were a kid…you still knew better."

"Not you too…" Ozai muttered.

"You've lost the privilege of being called 'father'. You know in our jail visit, when you wouldn't say anything until I talked dirty for you while you jerked off? Well, you better have really, _really_ enjoyed that. Because that's the last time it'll ever happen. I hope you slowly rot from the inside out in that cell of yours," Azula said icily.

For once, Ozai looked unsure of himself.

"Now," Azula went on, "I am going to close my eyes and count to ten. And when I'm done, you had better be gone."

She did just that, and found herself alone in the room when she looked again.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

"Is everything all right in there?" the night nurse asked.

"It's fine. Just a bad dream," Azula told her.

Of course, the nurse had to open the door to check anyway, but found nothing amiss, so she shut the door again and left Azula to finally sleep in piece.

This wasn't quite the end of all her problems. She'd end up staying in the hospital for almost another year and a half, and her illness would be with her for the rest of her life. But it was a crucial first step.


	40. Soup

A/N: I've written a lot about Tom-Tom and/or Kazuo taking care of Azula…so I decided to do something where she takes care of _them_! "Winter fever" is just another term for the flu…I came up with it because "influenza" is an Italian word, so I don't think they'd use it. As for the episode in LoK where Varrick mentioned Lyme disease, which is named after a city in Connecticut…I like to pretend that didn't happen. *side-eyes show writers*

* * *

When you were the mother of a growing boy who was seemingly always hungry, and had vowed to raise him with as little assistance from servants as possible, it didn't matter how high-born you were…sometimes your son would simply not be able to wait until food could be brought up from the kitchens. Thus, Azula had been obligated to learn how to prepare simple meals for him, and had even had a small kitchen of her own installed for this purpose.

However, she had never tried to make soup before. But both her men were sick with winter fever, and the doctor said it was important for them to have adequate intakes of fluids and salt. So Azula had decided to try her hand at it. As Ty Lee might say, there was a first time for everything. And it couldn't be that hard, right? All one had to do was put a bunch of stuff into boiling water, reduce the heat, and wait until it was cooked.

Her husband seemed skeptical of her soup-making abilities, though.

"Thanks, but…I'm not hungry," he whispered.

"Nonsense," snapped Azula. "You haven't consumed anything except tea since yesterday, and I will not allow you to starve to death under my watch."

Tom-Tom whimpered pathetically.

Azula rolled her eyes and said, "Oh come on, it's not poisoned. And it's not _that_ bad either. I tasted it to make sure, and Kazuo ate all of his, and he didn't even make any faces while doing so! Do you really want to live with the fact that you're a worse patient than a six-year-old boy?"

When he remained unconvinced, Azula decided to soften her stance, and amended, "Tell you what…you can start by eating half of it, okay?"

So he did…and at the very least, he managed to not die from it.


	41. Bull

A/N: I was pretty annoyed when LoK picked up this matter and dropped it almost immediately, and thought that Azula would have something to say about it (since I'd think she'd at least hate Katara slightly less after Kazuo was born, and would respect her as as a powerful bender).

* * *

Azula was actually looking forward to the family's annual trip to Ember Island, since it would be Kazuo's first vacation. This time last year, he'd only been a month old, so she'd stayed home with him. But this time, she was determined that he would go and would enjoy it. She'd even ordered a miniature boat to be custom-made for him, so he could be pushed around in the shallow water.

But the day before they left, they ran into a snag.

"You neglected to mention that all your old friends would be coming. _And_ bringing their children, too. An unfortunate slipup, to be sure," Azula informed her brother.

Zuko looked rather guilty, and had to clear his throat before saying, "Well…now you know."

"They better keep their little brats away from Kazuo, at least," Azula warned, looking down to where her son was sitting at her feet, looking up from his wooden blocks as he heard his name.

"They're just _children_, Azula," Zuko sighed.

"I'm not so sure about that. That one sure likes to _glare_ at me like she's possessed by demons. And we don't want any of that, do we, Kazuo?"

Kazuo carefully moved the blue block over to the right, then, satisfied with this development, stated, "Buh!"

"See, Zuzu? He agrees."

Then Azula's brow furrowed.

"Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you…where's Katara? I was under the impression that she wasn't dead yet."

"She's at home with the two older kids."

"I see," said Azula icily.

Zuko looked confused, and said, "I thought you'd be happy. You don't even like her!"

"Brother, I don't have to like someone to recognize bullshit when I hear it…sorry, Kaz," Azula answered…the last part when she belatedly realized that although Kazuo couldn't really talk yet, his ears worked just fine.

Then she wrinkled her nose and added, "Or maybe I should make that 'smell it'. Okay, Kazuo, come on, let's get out of here and get you changed. This conversation wasn't going anywhere anyway. And don't look at me like that, Zuko; I've known how to do it properly for months now."


	42. The Beach Revisited

Yes, I know that Kazuo probably wouldn't have actually said "Bee," since they're probably not actually speaking English, but just assume it's a translation. I swear, I probably worry about this stuff more than the canon writers do! (FWIW, the Chinese word for "beach" appears to be "haitan".)

Also not sure whether they have sunscreen, but I couldn't bear writing about a baby being out in the sun all day without it.

* * *

"Yes, Kazuo, we're going to the beach today! Can you say 'beach'?"

"Bee."

"…Close enough. Now hold still so I can get this sunblock lotion on you."

Azula had been fervently hoping that Kazuo would enjoy the beach, since no one wanted a cranky baby on vacation. Thankfully, he did, but he had to be carefully watched. Azula and Tom-Tom quickly learned that Kazuo had decided to perform an ongoing experiment, entitled "The Edibility of Beach Sand in Various Locations". Not that they wanted to crush his dreams of becoming a scientist, but all that sand was bound to be bad for his digestive tract. And when he wasn't doing that, he was crawling over to Izumi and "helping" with her sand palace, which frustrated the latter to no end. So they decided it would be best to have him playing in the water most of the time.

On the wet, more level sand, Kazuo was able to practice his walking, with one parent holding on to each hand. He laughed whenever he got sprayed by a wave, and it was so infectious that Azula and Tom-Tom always laughed along with him. Azula also made Zuko haul out Kazuo's new boat, and they had fun with that too, although Kazuo nearly fell out several times while trying to grab at clumps of seaweed (not that his life would have ever been in danger with both his parents right there).

This was all fun, but very exhausting. So after a couple of hours, Azula gathered Kazuo up and announced that she was going to find something to drink. Tom-Tom was busy looking at seashells, so the two of them went alone.

Azula thought she remembered there being a particular drink stand that sold really good watermelon smoothies. It took a few minutes of searching, but she found it again. So there she was, standing in line, and, for Kazuo's sake not even complaining about it, when…

"Hey! You!"

Even after more than twenty years, she instantly recognized the voice. Oh no. No no no. Of all the people to run into…well, maybe if she kept looking straight ahead, he'd go away.

"OI! PRINCESS LADY!"

…That wasn't going to work was it? It appeared Azula had no choice. So she stepped out of the line before too many people started staring, and said, "Hello, Chan," in a voice that could freeze lava. She casually summoned a small flame in her free hand, to remind him what she was capable of.

He had certainly let himself go to pot since they last met. Even after having a baby, Azula was still in-shape enough to wear a two-piece suit, but Chan had not taken such care of himself. From what she'd heard, after a failed stint in the military, he'd gone back to spending his days mooching off his parents and his nights partying. And at thirty-six, one could not lead this lifestyle without it taking its toll on one's body.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here," she remarked in a deadpan tone that Mai would have been proud of.

"Yeah, that's really weird, isn't it? Who's the kid?"

He stepped closer, and Kazuo pulled a face and said, "Yuck!" (which was a word he'd heard frequently this morning as sand was swiped out of his mouth.) Azula knew that this was likely more a reaction to the noxious scent Chan had liberally applied than to the man himself, but she couldn't help but agree with the sentiment.

"This is Kazuo," Azula informed him. " He's my baby. I had him. With my husband. Because I'm married."

She hoped that her withering glance would impart that she knew full well that _he_ hadn't been able to find a spouse yet.

Kazuo chose this moment to tug at the neckline of Azula's bathing suit.

"Stop that," she admonished as she lifted his hand away. "You're weaned and you know it."

Chan blinked, then shook his head as to remind himself what he was going to say.

"You know, I got in big trouble about the house being burned down!" he informed her. "I was totally grounded for, like, a year!"

Azula had thought he would say something like that.

"Yeah, well…I said _stop it_, Kazuo…I hope you will excuse my lack of sympathy. I'm pretty sure you would have ended up slipping something in my drink if I hadn't scared you off. So yeah…still not sorry. And then you would have been promptly arrested and most likely executed personally by me. It's good for everyone that things happened as they…_KAZUO!_"

For just then, Kazuo had yanked hard enough to reveal almost everything.

"Well, you at least got a show right there, Chan. And speaking of drinks, I'm super-thirsty now, so if you could leave us alone, that would be nice."

She re-adjusted her top, turned back around, and refused to acknowledge his existence any further.

"We are going to have to have a talk later about how exposing Mommy's boobs to creepy playboys is a no-no," Azula whispered to Kazuo as they got back in line.


	43. Desperate Times

A/N: Was this chapter just an excuse to show Toph in all her Tophness? Maybe…

* * *

The old beach house had been torn down, and a new, smaller one had been built a short distance away. Zuko had said he wanted it to be more intimate than the last one. It was still a lot bigger than the cottages that vacationing commoners had to use, but Zuko had once again "forgotten" to tell her vital information…that the Avatar, Toph, and their respective kids would be staying in the house with them. Azula felt like she could scarcely walk down the hallway without bumping into multiple people. More importantly, they had been there for over a week, and Azula had not been able to get any "quality time" with her husband.

True, they had their own bedroom, but these activities tended to make noise, and Azula would rather not that the whole house knew what they were doing. But now she felt like she was about to burst-despite some furtive trips to the bathroom to try to take care of it herself-and desperate times called for desperate measures.

One afternoon, she got her chance. Zuko and Mai had already left to go on a "nature walk" (if it were any other couple, Azula might have gotten suspicious, but they were such dorks that that probably _was _what they were actually doing) so she oh-so-subtly suggested that the Avatar and Toph take the kids out to some sweetshop. The Avatar thought it was a great idea. Toph raised an eyebrow, but surprisingly kept quiet. Azula even let them take Kazuo just to make sure everyone else was out of the house…though not before promising them a slow and painful death if even one hair on his head was harmed.

"Well," Azula said to Tom-Tom when they were _finally_ alone, "Looks like it's just the two of us for a while."

"Yeah," Tom-Tom answered, then added, "Hey, I know!"

"Yeeeeees?"

"Now that we have some peace and quiet…we could take a nice, long _nap_!"

Azula nearly screamed in exasperation. Sometimes it was very difficult being the one with the higher sex drive…especially since this was traditionally the male's role.

"Oh no, mister. You're not getting out of your marital duties that easily!" she exclaimed.

"My…wha…oh. Okay. That's fine too."

"I mean, if you really don't want to…"

"No, I do."

"We can even take a nap after," Azula offered.

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Tom-Tom may have been caught off-guard at first, but he quickly warmed up to the idea. _Very _ quickly.

* * *

"Auntie Azula? Uncle Tom-Tom? Why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

Azula blinked her eyes open and saw Izumi standing in the bedroom doorway, looking at them in shock. _Shit_, they'd forgotten to close the door! How long had they been sleeping? Everyone was supposed to be gone all afternoon!

She would have freaked out more, but she was too sleepy and sated right now to react much.

"Bzuh?" Tom-Tom asked groggily. Fortunately, Azula was lying partly on top of him, which minimized what Izumi saw. The two of them realized at about the same time that attempting to move would only make things worse.

Azula tried to come up with an excuse about it being too hot to wear clothes (not that this was very convincing, since they were cuddled together so closely), when Toph walked up behind Izumi and ruined her efforts.

"Playing hide-the-sausage, from the smell of things," she commented. "I knew it."

"What's hide-the-sausage?" Izumi asked.

"Go ask your parents," Toph told her while putting a hand on the wall. "They should be coming home...right. About. Now."

Sure enough, they could hear the front door opening as soon as she said "Now". Izumi ran off to greet them.

"Okay," Toph said, addressing the two of them, "You don't have to get dressed on _my_ account, of course, but I give you a minute tops before Lord Grouchy comes storming in here yelling about how you corrupted his daughter."

"Thanks a lot," muttered Tom-Tom.

"You're welcome."

"Well, I guess she had to find out at some point," Azula remarked as she started hunting for their clothes.

"Yup," Toph agreed nonchalantly.

Maybe they were more similar than Azula had realized. But just then, Zuko bellowed, "_WHAT_?!" out in the hallway, so they had to dress quickly and hope everything was on the right way while Toph "watched" amusedly.


	44. When Mom's Not Home

A/N: I couldn't resist...

Azula had had a long but productive day demonstrating that marriage and motherhood had dulled neither her wits nor her bending. For some reason, Zuko's government officials kept forgetting this, so she had to remind them…over and over. By this point, Zuko had given up on lecturing her.

So with all of today's action, she was ready to go home and relax in some peace and quiet. Thus, she was rather consternated when she heard loud music coming from the apartment. Was that a tsungi horn? She wasn't aware that they even owned one.

Frowning, she opened the door, only to be nearly knocked off her feet by the noise once the door wasn't muffling it. All right…_what_ was going on here?

The cacophony was coming from the kitchen, so she walked over there, only to stop dead in bewilderment as she saw Tom-Tom playing the horn as loudly as he could, with Kazuo repeatedly opening and slamming the oven door as an accompaniment.

And why were they both wearing sunglasses _indoors_?

"Ahem," Azula tried, but neither of them noticed her. Well, she did not take kindly to being ignored. So she walked right up to Tom-Tom and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped about a mile as his horn made a discordant noise, abruptly stopped playing, and looked at her very guiltily.

"Kazuo, okay, we have to stop! She's home now!" he shouted. Kazuo looked very disappointed.

"Can you offer any explanation for this bizarre behavior?" Azula asked calmly. They both shook their heads and had trouble meeting her gaze.

Azula just stood there staring at them for several moments, then finally shook her head and told Kazuo, "If that oven door falls off, it's coming out of your allowance." She was just too tired to give them a proper scolding. But they would have to be _very nice_ to her to get back in her good graces.


	45. Relationship

A/N: Another ficlet inspired by Tumblr posts.

Azula and Tom-Tom's relationship was one that had seemed doomed to fail from the start…yet somehow didn't. This frustrated the courtiers to no end, since they had been hoping for plenty of juicy quarrels to gossip over. They just could not figure out why those two were so damn harmonious, especially since Azula regularly insulted Tom-Tom...in public, no less. Some people thought Tom-Tom was in it for the status. Others thought that he simply got turned on by being bossed around. But no one knew for sure.

One day, one of the more bold gossipers defied normal protocol and cornered Tom-Tom when he was alone in the courtyard and asked him, "How can you _stand_ her?" No need to name names.

"That's not very polite," Tom-Tom replied mildly while attempting to sidestep out of the way.

"But she calls you an idiot almost on a daily basis!"

"Well, she's usually right."

"But doesn't it upset you?"

Tom-Tom just looked at this intruder for a very long time. Finally he said, "It's not what she _says_ that's important, it's what she _does_. Now if you'll excuse me…" and with that he finally found an escape route and left the nosy courtier to ponder this enigmatic statement.


	46. Old

A/N: This is probably going to be the first part to another one of my "trilogies" (for some reason, that's always how my mini-arcs seem to work!)

Since Azula's firebending skill was so advanced for her age, Grandfather had given permission for her to go to the arena with Lu Ten when he practiced. They were walking home from one such outing, Azula riding on Lu Ten's shoulders, when she asked out of the blue:

"Are we getting married?"

Lu Ten nearly choked on his own spit, and had to stop in his tracks until the coughing subsided. Actually, there had been talk of a betrothal, but how could she have known about that? Who would have told her?

Actually, scratch that. He knew _exactly_ who would have told her.

"Hello? I asked a question!" Azula piped up precociously when Lu Ten took a while to answer.

Finally, he said, "Well, maybe. But it wouldn't be for a very long time. You're not even four yet!"

"Oh. So when I'm five?"

"Longer than that."

"Six?"

"Still longer."

"_Seven?_" Azula asked, as if she could hardly fathom reaching such an advanced age.

"Azula…it wouldn't be until you were sixteen at least. Maybe even longer," Lu Ten told her. _Maybe never_, he added silently, since really, she was like a little sister to him, and the thought of having to do…those things to her made his stomach turn.

"Wow. That's _old_," Azula answered. He couldn't see her face, but he knew that she'd wrinkled her nose.

"Hey, now, I'm _seventeen_, so watch it!" he said mock-angrily. She blew a raspberry and laughed, and they let the subject drop as he started walking again. But years later, that conversation would come back to haunt Lu Ten.


End file.
